Oral Answers to Questions

DEFENCE

The Secretary of State was asked—

Suez Medal

Graham Allen: If he will make a statement on the distribution of medals to those who served in the Suez campaign.

Ivor Caplin: Distribution of the Suez medal began last November after the publication of Command Paper 5999 in the House on 23 October. As at the week ending 16 July, 40,297 applications had been received and 11,199 medals had been dispatched. I pay tribute to the hard work of all staff at the medal offices who are dealing with the backlog as speedily as possible under the current arrangements for medal distribution.

Graham Allen: I will surprise my hon. Friend not by linking this to the question of an Arctic convoy medal, but by paying tribute to him and the Front-Bench team, I hope, on behalf of hon. Members in all parts of the House, for their superb work in finally awarding the medal to the Suez veterans. That is appreciated by hon. Members of all parties and, indeed, by the veterans themselves. There have been some difficulties and delays, as we would expect on an exercise of this size, but will my hon. Friend tell us how the distribution is going and whether all those brave ex-servicemen will get their medals as soon as possible?

Ivor Caplin: I endorse my hon. Friend's comments and praise him and many other colleagues from all parts of the House who campaigned so assiduously during 2002 and 2003 for the award of a Suez medal. Let me update the House on the current situation. All applications that are received from Suez veterans are acknowledged on receipt. In the medal offices, these are the assessment dates: in the Royal Navy, 5 February 2004; in the Royal Marines, as the applications are received; the RAF is assessing cases received on 26 November 2003; and the Army Medal Office is currently assessing cases received on 31 October 2003.

Peter Luff: I am sure that my constituents in Droitwich will be very pleased to hear the Minister's tribute to their work in issuing the canal zone medal—one of some 300 to 400 medals issued by the Army Medal Office in Droitwich Spa—but may I tell him perhaps one last time that the proposal to close the Army Medal Office and move it to RAF Innsworth is bound to throw into chaos the distribution of the Suez canal zone medal and other medals? Whatever the long-term merits of moving the Medal Office, please may I ask him not to do it now?

Ivor Caplin: Again, I reject the hon. Gentleman's comments and pleas in relation to the future of the Army Medal Office. It is essential that we establish the Ministry of Defence medal office, and we have taken the decision to establish it at RAF Innsworth. I believe that it will lead to a greater and more beneficial production of medals for veterans, both Suez veterans and those who are leaving our forces at present. I plan to make a statement to the House when it returns in September about the progress that we will have made during the summer.

Local Regiments

Chris McCafferty: What assessment his Department has made of the role of local regiments in encouraging recruitment.

Ivor Caplin: Local regiments play a significant role in encouraging recruitment through regional recruiting teams—I am sorry—through regimental recruiting teams. [Interruption.] Since their formal establishment in early 2002, those teams have contributed greatly to the Army meeting its recruiting targets. Potential recruits list regimental recruiting teams as one of the top reasons why they contact recruiting offices.

Chris McCafferty: Given the very strong local ties that the Duke of Wellington's Regiment has with Calder Valley and Halifax and the impact that that has on recruitment to our armed forces, will my hon. Friend assure me that the Duke of Wellington's Regiment will retain its single cap badge? If he cannot give me that assurance, will he at least ensure that relevant officers in the Army are allowed to participate in any discussion about the future of their regiments?

Ivor Caplin: I am pleased to hear of my hon. Friend's interest in her local regiment, and I can assure her that, in the coming days and weeks, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence makes his announcement, we will take her comments into consideration.

Robert Key: Is the Minister aware that one of his very senior civil servants recently caused considerable offence by referring to cap badges as logos? Does the Minister understand that soldiers will die for their Queen and country and for their ideals and they may even die for their regiment, but they will not die for cap badges?

Ivor Caplin: I am afraid that I am not familiar with the comments to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but I understand the point that he makes.

Jim Knight: The Minister may be aware that there is concern down in Dorset at the possible demise of the Devon and Dorset Regiment and its merger with other west country regiments. Can he assure me that any such decision will be made by the Army and not by Ministers or accountants?

Ivor Caplin: All I can say to my hon. Friend is that, when announcements are due to be made, they will properly be made to the House.

Annabelle Ewing: I have a particular interest in this subject as the regimental headquarters of the Black Watch is in my constituency. The Minister will be aware that the regimental system in Scotland has proven its worth time and again, not simply in terms of recruitment, but also in terms of retention and operational worth. Why then are the United Kingdom Government planning to scrap the traditional regimental structure in Scotland?

Ivor Caplin: I do not think that the Government need to take any lessons about defence from the Scottish nationalists. I made the point on my visit to Scotland recently that recruitment is essential to keeping the Army in the public eye and it plays an important and continuing role in ensuring and nurturing applicants, particularly young people from Scotland, who have expressed an interest in joining our armed forces.

John Smith: Given the enormous success of the relocation of the first battalion of the Welsh Guards to RAF St. Athan in my constituency, does it not make great sense to the cause of recruitment to locate even more units to regions such as south Wales that have such a superb recruitment record?

Ivor Caplin: My hon. Friend will know that it is for the first time in many years—certainly for the first time that I can remember—that that is occurring at RAF St. Athan. That decision was taken by this Government. I also point out that the regimental recruiting teams are an essential part of what we do in all areas, and there are 93 of them across the UK.

Patrick Cormack: Are we to take the Secretary of State's convulsive reaction to the Minister's Freudian slip as confirmation that The Daily Telegraph had it right last Friday?

Ivor Caplin: Perhaps I should say to the hon. Gentleman that believing all that one reads in newspapers is not the best way to pursue matters.

David Stewart: Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Highlanders, who have their headquarters in my constituency? By the end of this year, they will be the best recruited regiment in Scotland. Does he share my view that it is very important to have a strong regional recruitment base and that that is extremely good for the morale of our troops?

Ivor Caplin: I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Highlanders. He will be aware that although some regiments recruit on a regional basis, other regiments or corps recruit on a national basis, and some do both. There is room for all that.

Nicholas Soames: Does the Minister agree that the great strength for well-run recruiting efforts of the local regiments are their proud and often historic links deep inside the counties and cities from which they spring? Will he further accept that these regiments and all that they mean and have meant to our national life will, once disbanded or amalgamated, never again be recreated?

Ivor Caplin: Perhaps patience will be a virtue for the hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will say more about these matters later in the week and in the coming weeks. I looked back at Hansard and I saw the quote:
	"The numerical strength of the Army should not be regarded as the primary measure of front-line strength. Its operational capability is of prime importance."—[Official Report, 4 July 1995; Vol. 263, c. 131.]
	Those are not my words or those of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State; they are the words of the hon. Member for Mid-Sussex (Mr. Soames) in 1995.

Nicholas Soames: Very prescient and admirable words they were, too. I want to press the Minister again, but thank him for his incitement for me to be patient. However, I would like a little frankness from him for a change. Can he confirm that there has not been a cap on recruitment targets for the Army in the training year 2004–05?

Ivor Caplin: I can absolutely and categorically tell the hon. Gentleman that there is absolutely no freeze on recruitment to the British Army.

Nicholas Soames: I think that the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. May I suggest that he reads the latest report by the Army Training and Recruiting Agency, a copy of which I have obtained for greater accuracy? It says:
	"During the year under review, recruiting group have done well on recruiting against, it should be noted decreasing targets."
	Has the hon. Gentleman imposed a cap on recruiting targets to the Army?

Ivor Caplin: The hon. Gentleman indicated earlier that he still agrees with his quote of nine years ago. [Interruption.] If he is patient, as I said, he might get the answer. I can tell him that the whole Army training strength has increased by more than 3,300 in the past two years. Retention is above average levels and recruitment is buoyant. To answer his earlier question, the Army Training and Recruiting Agency has outperformed against the mandated targets over both of the past two years.

David Drew: To take us back to the main point behind the question, does my hon. Friend accept that the reorganisation that took place less than five years ago to put the Gloucesters in with the Berkshire and Wiltshire regiment has taken some time to work its way through? That is one thing, and we retain the name "the Gloucesters", but it would be quite different if a proposal were coming forth to merge us yet again into a Wessex regiment. I hope that my hon. Friend will take due note of the concern that was expressed locally about any recruitment if such a proposal were brought forward.

Ivor Caplin: I certainly take note of my hon. Friend's comments. I know something about the Gloucesters because of the regiment's involvement in Korea in the 1950s. I was pleased to meet members of the regiment when I visited Korea last summer for the 50th anniversary celebrations of the end of the Korean war.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bob Spink: How many UK servicemen and women are serving in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Adam Ingram: The United Kingdom currently has around 1,000 service personnel committed to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Bob Spink: Will the right hon. Gentleman join me in sending to those troops the congratulations and thanks of the House on the courageous and professional job that they do in fiendishly difficult circumstances while peacekeeping in Bosnia? At the end of this year when the SFOR operation under NATO command comes to an end, will British troops be involved in the new EU-sponsored operation? Will he tell us how many troops will be involved then?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman asks me to send a message of support to our troops in Bosnia and Herzegovina and I assume that he would extend that to those in the rest of the region. I can certainly do that because I visited those troops only a matter of weeks ago, when I was able to give our warm message of support to them. They are doing a magnificent job, and although there are still issues to be resolved in the region, we are making progress. The EUFOR mission will take forward the progress that is being made and yes, British troops will be involved—we will be leading that mission.

Mike Gapes: Will my right hon. Friend tell me what progress has been made on dealing with national caveats among some of our EU partners? Can he assure us that when the transfer from SFOR to EUFOR takes place, there will be no diminution of the effectiveness of the forces there in case there are further difficulties in the future?

Adam Ingram: As ever, my hon. Friend raises an important and key issue relating to the deployment of international forces. National caveats were discussed at the Istanbul summit. It is recognised that they need to be addressed and that solutions need to be found to any blockages that impact adversely on the successful conclusion and implementation of such missions.

Hugh Robertson: Will the Minister confirm that no regiment, battalion or unit involved in operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or any active service zone, will return to this country to find that it has been cut? As I am sure he appreciates, rather than representing the grateful thanks of the country, that would be an awful kick in the teeth.

Adam Ingram: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary gave the message for today: the Secretary of State will make an announcement later in the week. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be present to raise his concerns. I suggest that he waits for the full announcement because such issues are better addressed in the round and with consideration of the balance of judgments that have to be made. His party had to make such judgements when it was in government.

RAF Museum, Hendon

Andrew Dismore: If he will make a statement on the support his Department gives to the RAF museum, Hendon.

Ivor Caplin: The Ministry of Defence sponsors the RAF museum as a non-departmental public body and provides a grant in aid to meet the majority of the museum's running costs. Last year the grant in aid was £6.8 million. In addition, we have supported the museum with various development projects, and most recently we earmarked £1 million in capital funding for a new development at the Cosford site to house an exhibition of the cold war years.

Andrew Dismore: Does my hon. Friend agree that the decision two or three years ago to find additional resources to enable the museum to allow free admission has been extremely successful? Visitor numbers have doubled, with 250,000 attending Hendon and a similar number visiting Cosford—half a million visitors between the two sites. Since the Milestones of Flight and the restored Grahame-White aircraft factory opened—

Hon. Members: Too long.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope the hon. Gentleman will not take too long over this.

Andrew Dismore: I was going on to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that you might like to visit the museum yourself to see how well it is doing. I had expected to ask my hon. Friend the Minister to put his hand in his pocket again to enable some of the galleries to be opened, but I am pleased to say that the money has now come through, so the museum can be fully opened. The museum is grateful to my hon. Friend for that additional help.

Ivor Caplin: As always, I am delighted to thank my hon. Friend for the brevity of his question. I very much enjoyed my visit to his constituency in February when we were campaigning in a local council by-election, and during my visit we drove past the RAF museum. The RAF is rightly proud of its heritage and, as I am sure my hon. Friend will agree following his visit a couple of weeks ago, the museum provides an excellent showcase for that. The relationship with the RAF is mutually beneficial, since the museum actively promotes the Royal Air Force to the general public, as well as to aspiring airmen and airwomen. It is worth noting that the policy of free admission and access for all to both national museums and RAF museums is a policy of this Government, reinforced by the Chancellor's recent spending review. We are proud of that policy, but the Opposition continue to object.

James Gray: While the whole House will be pleased to hear about the support that the Government are giving to the RAF museum, does the Minister agree that if the cuts to the RAF that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to announce on Wednesday are as deep and damaging as we all believe they will be, the spending on the RAF museum will have to increase by an enormous amount?

Ivor Caplin: I am afraid the hon. Gentleman did not hear the words—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that hon. Members will not revert to a previous question in their supplementary.

Ivor Caplin: I agree, Mr. Speaker. I was about to give the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr. Gray) the same advice as I gave to the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) earlier about not believing all the speculation.

Iraq

Richard Bacon: If he will make a statement on the current situation in Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: I have to inform the House that a United Kingdom Puma helicopter crashed this morning at the airfield in Basra. I regret to report that there has been one British fatality. It appears unlikely that hostile action was the cause, although it is too soon to confirm any other details.
	Elsewhere in Iraq, the Iraqi Interim Government are well established, and are working to ensure that the conditions are right to hold full elections to a Transitional Assembly early next year. The task of preparing the elections themselves falls to the Independent Electoral Commission of the United Nations, which has been operating since May. I understand that arrangements for holding a National Conference to advise the Interim Government are also well advanced.
	Significant security challenges remain, but the Iraqi Interim Government have made clear their determination to confront them. We are providing support where necessary, and helping to modernise, train and equip Iraq's own security forces. There are now over 230,000 recruited Iraqi security personnel, including some 90,000 police. More than 20,000 reconstruction projects have begun, building and redeveloping schools, hospitals, bridges and roads across Iraq and providing employment for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Richard Bacon: May I offer my condolences to the family of the Puma helicopter victim this morning. I am sure that other Members join me in doing so.
	The Butler report shows that the Government took the country to war on the basis of flawed intelligence. Was that because the Government did not know what they were doing, or because they knew what they were doing but tried to hide it? Either way, is it not time, rather than for promotions for people like John Scarlett, that someone took responsibility for the mess and resigned?

Geoff Hoon: The Butler report was a thorough examination of the relevant facts. I am sure that, if the hon. Gentleman looked at the report properly and comprehensively instead of seeking to select certain aspects of it, he would recognise that Lord Butler and those who joined him in producing the report did not criticise any individual member of the Government or, indeed, any individual civil servant. It is wrong of the hon. Gentleman to come to the House and make such attacks on an individual who does not have the opportunity to respond.

Alice Mahon: May I also offer my condolences with regard to the tragic loss that the British Army has suffered today?
	My right hon. Friend paints a rosy picture about the Interim Government, but may I put it to him that the Interim Prime Minister of Iraq has agreed to an occupying force bombing the country's own civilians yet again in Falluja? We now hear that women and children were killed in that bombing. How can anybody have any faith in such a Government?

Geoff Hoon: I was not, I hope, painting a rosy picture to the House. I recognise that there are still significant security challenges to be faced, but they are now being faced increasingly by Iraqis themselves. I hope that they, like the Prime Minister, whom my hon. Friend mentioned, are in the best position to judge the appropriateness of the action being taken. I am sure that the Iraqi Prime Minister is right to recognise that it is necessary to take action against those who will attack not only coalition forces, but, increasingly, the Iraqis themselves. It is not surprising, therefore, when the Iraqi Prime Minister authorises the sort of action that is necessary to deal with those attacks.

Paul Keetch: The situation is indeed still serious in Iraq, with the news of the car bomb this morning, and the shooting and downing of the Puma helicopter, to which the Secretary of State referred. We send our condolences to the persons involved.
	Does the Secretary of State agree that, whatever honest disputes we on the Liberal Democrat Benches and many on his Back Benches had about the decision to go to war last year, we all now want Iraq to be a stable country working towards the beneficial prospects of a democratic Iraq? We support the role of our forces and civilians in the responsibility that they now have, but what message does he have for those on some other Benches who now suddenly claim that they were misled into war? What is his opinion of their view now?

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that the Secretary of State should air that view at the moment. There is a debate tomorrow on the Butler report. This question is about the current situation in Iraq.

Geoff Hoon: I have made this point before, but I make no apology for repeating it: whatever views right hon. and hon. Members took of the decision to take military action against the regime of Saddam Hussein, the situation that confronts us now is the one that the hon. Gentleman referred to; it is vital that we rebuild the country, provide stability for the Iraqi people and restore Iraq as a rightful member of the international community. Right hon. and hon. Members will, understandably and rightly, have different views of that decision to take military action, but surely we must all now unite in wanting to see Iraq restored as a stable, tolerant and ultimately democratic country.

Andrew Miller: May I join colleagues from all parts of the House in what they have said with regard to my right hon. Friend's comments about the person lost in the Puma this morning?
	My right hon. Friend will have heard the Prime Minister praise the role of the Cheshire regiment, which is currently serving in Iraq. When I last saw the regiment, immediately after active service in Bosnia, I came across many young men who had faced very serious traumas and needed a great deal of support post that period. Will he assure me that, on their return, members of the regiment will get every possible support to ensure that the horrors that they faced do not live with them for the rest of their lives?

Geoff Hoon: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that vital point on behalf of not only the Cheshires, but all those who are currently serving with such distinction in Iraq and, indeed, other theatres around the world. I assure him that efforts have been made to learn the lessons of previous conflicts and deal with the stresses that arise as a result of the horrors seen by members of our armed forces. If those efforts are not producing the right results, we will re-examine the matter, but efforts have been made to learn the lessons.

Keith Simpson: Conservative Members also send our condolences with regard to the crew of the Puma. From previous questions, it is obvious that the British sector in Iraq is currently stabilised by the professionalism and bravery of the British armed forces. Given Conservative Members' experiences of talking and listening to members of the British armed forces, the Secretary of State should think very seriously about turning the British Army into regional regiments to deal with manning in Iraq. That would undermine the morale of regiments such as the Black Watch, the Royal Welch Fusiliers and others, which will turn into unloved regional regiments, rather like the unloved regional assemblies.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going back to Question 2.

Michael Clapham: May I add my condolences on the helicopter crash? My right hon. Friend knows that the monitoring board was established in May 2003 to ensure that Iraqi oil revenues were not misused, but we now hear that a report prepared by KPMG suggests that as much as $1.4 billion may have gone to the American contractor Halliburton. If that allegation proves to be true, does he agree that that is a scandalous misappropriation and will he call for further investigations?

Geoff Hoon: Those allegations are subject to investigation. It is important that we ensure that oil revenues are used properly for the purpose agreed by the United Nations.

Procurement Contracts

Anne McIntosh: If he will make a statement on the criteria used in awarding procurement contracts.

Geoff Hoon: Our procurement policy is driven by the need to provide the armed forces with the equipment they require at best value for money for the taxpayer. As set out in the Government's defence industrial policy, acquisition decisions are driven principally by cost, operational effectiveness and affordability.

Anne McIntosh: The Secretary of State knows that a £1.5 billion contract will be awarded for the Ministry of Defence support vehicle. I pay tribute to the work of our servicemen and women, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. They should get the best vehicle that money can buy, which should have been battle tested in Iraq and Afghanistan and proven to have the highest reliability and technical capability. Why have none of the four main bidders' vehicles been trialled?

Geoff Hoon: A decision will be made soon on the support vehicle competition—the bids are in the final stage of their evaluation, and it would be inappropriate to say any more. As I indicated a moment ago, affordability is undoubtedly one of the key criteria for any equipment. No doubt the hon. Lady will make those representations to her Front Benchers, who propose to cut the defence budget by something in the order of £2.7 billion, which is rather more than the total cost of that project.

Stephen Hepburn: Is the Secretary of State aware that the average age of a skilled worker on the Tyne is more than 50, so there is a lot of hope in the north that the proposed aircraft carrier project will do something to rectify that? Can he assure me that the aircraft carrier programme will go ahead on time and as the MOD originally specified?

Geoff Hoon: I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. I have set out in a written answer today our determination to proceed with the carrier contract. I am confident that the contract will provide a significant amount of shipbuilding work, not only for my hon. Friend's constituency, but for many other shipbuilding constituencies around the country.

Sydney Chapman: Will the Secretary of State confirm that the defence procurement budget is running at between £9 billion and £10 billion a year? Can he assure the House that the Defence Procurement Agency, which took over from the Procurement Executive in 1999, is meeting its main objective of buying weapons systems and platforms and delivering them on time, within budget, and to specific standards?

Geoff Hoon: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. I regret to tell the House that, particularly in relation to some of the older contracts signed under previous Governments, there has been some slippage as a result of the poor financial standards that were imposed—poor financial standards of the kind that we get used to, unfortunately, from the hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleagues, who want to cut the total defence budget by roughly a quarter of the amount that he said was available for procurement. Perhaps he could ask them which particular projects they intend to cut.

Nick Brown: What are the implications of my right hon. Friend's opening remarks for the shipbuilding programmes that are under way at Swan Hunter and at Govan, and for the proposed extensions to that work?

Geoff Hoon: We have a very extensive programme of new shipbuilding to provide the Royal Navy with the latest and best equipment for frigates and for carriers. Members of the Royal Navy are hugely enthusiastic about the forward programme, which, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Hepburn), will provide significant job opportunities right across the shipbuilding industry.

Edward Garnier: May I ask the Secretary of State about military helicopter procurement? This time last year, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (John Robertson) and I, under the auspices of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, spent the week with the joint helicopter force based at Basra airport, and learned at first hand how difficult it is to fly helicopters in the intense summer heat in that part of the world. What plans, if any, do the Government have to procure helicopters for use by the Iraq military, instead of by British and other coalition forces, so that they can patrol the skies of their own country without the need to use British helicopters?

Geoff Hoon: Extensive programmes are available to Iraq to provide the right kind of equipment for its armed forces once the training that they are receiving is of the necessary complexity to enable them to operate sophisticated equipment such as helicopters. At this stage, I cannot say precisely when those helicopters will be delivered to the Iraqis, but I know that that is in the programme.

Brian Jenkins: Further to the question by the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman), when will my right hon. Friend come to the House to justify the continued existence of legacy projects that are running massively over-time and over-budget? We know that they were initiated under the previous Administration, but are they needed now, and at such cost?

Geoff Hoon: I will not give the House a long list of the various procurement projects that are under way, but I can say that, even allowing for certain of the legacy projects that were subject to significant delay before this Government were elected, we will continue with those that meet a justifiable military need. However, we have tried to get them under control in terms of cost and time, because that is crucial in delivering their capability to our armed forces.

Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft

James Paice: What plans he has to reassess the contract for the future strategic tanker aircraft private finance initiative.

Adam Ingram: We are currently assessing whether placing a private finance initiative service contract with AirTanker Ltd. will provide the best value for money solution for the future strategic tanker aircraft project. No final decisions have been taken.

James Paice: I thank the Minister for that answer. Can the House therefore assume that the question whether to go ahead with the project is still in the melting pot, as well as the decision on to whom the contract should be granted? If he intends to go ahead with the project, but is still considering who should do the work, I urge him to look again at the preferred option and to consider the alternative option of using refurbished aircraft adapted in Cambridge, in my constituency.

Adam Ingram: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced to the House in January 2004, AirTanker Ltd. has been judged to offer the best prospect of providing a value-for-money PFI solution. However, several detailed issues remain to be resolved on this complex PFI project before a final decision is taken. We are resolved to proceed with it once that assessment is completed. Clearly, air refuelling is a key military capability and it is important to take the time necessary to make the right decision for the armed forces and the taxpayer. I would have thought that the hon. Gentleman agreed with that. We shall make further announcements when appropriate.
	I am aware that Marshall of Cambridge and other companies have submitted unsolicited alternative proposals for future air refuelling capability. Our evaluation remains focused on securing a value-for-money private finance initiative contract with AirTanker Ltd. I hope that that answers the question.

Lindsay Hoyle: We are considering an important contract. Does my right hon. Friend appreciate that the location of the base, where maintenance will be carried out, is also important for supply and back-up to the fleet? I believe that Warton is the right place for maintaining and basing the aircraft.

Adam Ingram: My hon. Friend can be assured of the importance with which we view the contract. The accompanying base and support mechanisms are clearly part of any solution, but my hon. Friend, like other hon. Members, will have to wait for the final announcement.

Wind Generators

David Heathcoat-Amory: What discussions he has had with the Department of Trade and Industry about the siting of electricity wind generators.

Ivor Caplin: The Ministry of Defence maintains an extremely close working relationship with the Department of Trade and Industry on wind energy issues. Both Departments are members of the wind energy, defence and civil aviation interests working group, which also includes representatives from the Civil Aviation Authority, the National Air Traffic Service and the British Wind Energy Association. We also work jointly with the industry on round 2 offshore wind farm developments. Later this week, the Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services and I will meet representatives of the wind energy industry.

David Heathcoat-Amory: I do not think that a working group measures up to the scale of the problem. Does the Under-Secretary realise that wind generators are ugly, unnecessary, expensive and a threat to everything that flies? I do not simply mean birds and bats but aircraft, especially military aircraft. They also interfere with military radar. Rather than objecting on a case-by-case basis, will the Department create a presumption against any more of those gimmicky contraptions on the ground of good defence as well as that of saving the environment?

Ivor Caplin: I assure the right hon. Gentleman that every proposal for wind farm development is considered on a case-by-case basis rather than according to an overall presumption. The Ministry of Defence does not have a policy of automatically refusing proposals and we encourage developers to work with officials from both the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Trade and Industry to determine whether a mutually acceptable solution can be found. That is a sensible and practical way forward.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: The Under-Secretary knows both that we are delighted to hear that and that the Energy Bill had to be amended to include another clause to ensure that wind farms were not built in shipping lanes. Wind farms at sea pose a genuine problem for radar. Will my hon. Friend assure me that the Ministry and the Department for Transport are consulting closely with the Department of Trade and Industry before making decisions that can be only inimical to defence and transport?

Ivor Caplin: I give my hon. Friend the commitment that she seeks.

Owen Paterson: RAF Shawbury trains pilots from all three services. What threats do the huge new turbines pose to inexperienced junior pilots who are undertaking training?

Ivor Caplin: We have a proper, consultative process with the industry, which involves eight different tests, to ensure that such matters are considered before we agree to further negotiations about a wind farm. The Ministry of Defence is clearly committed to supporting the Government's renewable energy target of 10 per cent. renewables generation by 2010. We intend to play our part in that.

Iraq (Detainees)

Adam Price: For what reason no reference was made to the prohibition of hooding of detainees in Iraq in guidance issued to service personnel until 30 September 2003.

Adam Ingram: Ministry of Defence training makes it clear that the use of hoods during interrogation and tactical questioning is not permitted. However, hooding as a means of blindfolding where this is militarily justified—for example to prevent prisoners from viewing sensitive areas—has been routine practice in successive conflicts and is considered to be compliant with the relevant international conventions.

Adam Price: I thank the Minister for his reply. He will know that the policy on hooding was changed in September as a result of the death of Baha Mousa, in which that practice was deemed to be a contributory factor. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the International Committee of the Red Cross had previously expressed concerns on the practice of hooding to the British Army? Having failed to act on that advice until it was too late, must not the Government accept their share of responsibility for Mr. Mousa's death?

Adam Ingram: I am conscious that, every time I answer a question from the hon. Gentleman on this matter, a misinterpretation of what I have said appears in either The Independent or The Independent on Sunday. Either he does not understand my answers or there is a deliberate practice of trying to read too much into them. I do not accept the premise in the opening part of his question, and I must point out that these matters are under investigation, although I understand that he might want to judge people guilty before due process has taken place. He also asked me to confirm that discussions had taken place with the ICRC. Again, I do not think that he has been listening to the answers that have been given in the House. The International Committee of the Red Cross makes it very clear that its dealings with and reports to Governments are confidential, so we cannot discuss the matter and I cannot comment on the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question. If he has been told something different by the ICRC, I hope that he will write to me and we can take the matter up with that body.

Harry Cohen: Was hooding used following the operation by British troops in Majar al-Kabir in May? Have any complaints been received about that operation and, if so, what has been their nature? Will the Minister say what the proper procedure is following such military action? Is it to remove bodies? Is it to take prisoners if at all possible, and to keep them alive? How are the relatives of the deceased notified—

Mr. Speaker: Order. One supplementary question will suffice.

Adam Ingram: One of the issues that we have been dealing with is a report from another body, Amnesty International. I replied in detail on 1 July to submissions made by Amnesty across a range of issues, and all that material has been placed in the Library of the House of Commons. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman refers to those detailed responses, and if he wants to write to me further on the back of the detailed examination that is taking place in respect of each of the known complaints and the way in which they are being conducted, perhaps we can get to an established answer that will satisfy him.

Rosyth Dockyard

Rachel Squire: If he will make a statement on the future of Rosyth dockyard.

Adam Ingram: Rosyth royal dockyard has always carried out a significant element of Royal Navy surface ship refit work, and will continue to do so. I am pleased to announce the decision to award the upkeep contracts for HMS Edinburgh and HMS Walney to BSSL—Babcock Support Services Ltd.—at Rosyth. I pay tribute to the work force and management at Rosyth dockyard for their success in being awarded these contracts.

Rachel Squire: I sincerely thank my right hon. Friend for giving such excellent news to Rosyth and to Scotland, and for praising the Rosyth work force, who stand out for delivering ships at or below cost, on or before time and to the highest standards. Does he agree that the UK's defence industrial base will benefit from maintaining Rosyth's naval and maritime skills in the lead-up to its playing a major part in the construction of the future aircraft carrier?

Adam Ingram: Let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has been assiduous in supporting the case for Rosyth and has been in almost daily contact with me, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence or the Minister of State for Defence Procurement, the noble Lord Bach. Her hard work has paid off, and she is also right to pay tribute to the work force and management at Rosyth dockyard. As for Rosyth's future shipbuilding capabilities, it is one of the four yards named last year with the potential to be involved in the construction and assembly of the new future aircraft carriers. While I cannot confirm Rosyth's future involvement in the carrier programme at this stage, this is none the less promising for the future.

Julian Lewis: Does the Minister accept that the future of both Rosyth and Faslane is bound up with that of the strategic nuclear deterrent? While appreciating that specific systems will be decided on in the next Parliament rather than in this one, can he send a signal of encouragement to the communities in Rosyth and Faslane that the Government still accept in principle that Britain should continue to possess a strategic nuclear deterrent as long as other countries have nuclear weapons?

Adam Ingram: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman reads the White Paper to get the answer to the latter part of his question. I am sure that he will understand that the life cycles of the nuclear deterrent and the boats that carry it last for long years, so the future for many years ahead is assured for those who carry out the support work. I reflect that not so many months ago, I announced the retention of about 1,000 jobs—I think that that is the correct figure—at Faslane for 25 years. We hardly got any recognition in the Scottish press for that statement. I just hope that they report the good news for Rosyth.

Ian Davidson: Although the Minister's recent announcement about orders being placed is welcome, may I ask him what steps he is taking to investigate claims made by the work force in Rosyth that the playing field is biased against them by unfair subsidies given by the MOD to their competitors? What steps is he taking to end the hunger-and-burst system of orders with the introduction of a best-value system that smoothes out procurement work?

Adam Ingram: I am not sure whether my hon. Friend heard my original answer, but this is good news for Rosyth. It has won the contract, not lost it, and I am sure that all the other yards may ask whether there is a level playing field in such circumstances. Obviously, if any dockyard or shipbuilder offers substantive evidence to prove bias, we must investigate it. The way in which my hon. Friend poses the question, however, is not based on fact.

Front-line Personnel

Vincent Cable: If he will make a statement on the implications of the comprehensive spending review for the number of front-line service personnel.

Geoff Hoon: The spending review settlement will provide an additional £3.7 billion for our armed forces in 2007–08 compared with 2004–05, with average annual real growth of 1.4 per cent. It will allow us to take forward our modernisation plans, so that our forces are ready for the challenges of the 21st century. I expect to announce the detail of our plans to the House on Wednesday.

Vincent Cable: The spending review suggests that additional funding for front-line staff will come by cutting 15,000 support staff. Is the Secretary of State in a position to say where those redundancies will occur and whether the staff concerned have yet been told?

Geoff Hoon: Obviously, the precise details will be announced on Wednesday. The usual process of consultation will take place: indeed, I attended a meeting this morning with some of the trade unions to discuss with them the ways in which programmes will be taken forward. By and large, given the time scale of the proposals, we hope that it will be possible to ensure that those redundancies occur without involving significant harm to the work force—generally through natural wastage.

Gordon Prentice: But why are we so dependent on Commonwealth recruits, and particularly on recruits from Fiji? I have the figures in front of me, and it appears that the British Army could not function without Fijians? Will the spending review allow for more UK recruits to be attracted into the British Army, and what exactly is the problem with recruitment?

Geoff Hoon: I am sorry that my hon. Friend responds in that way to the valuable contribution that citizens from Commonwealth countries are making, and have always made, to Britain's armed forces. Their contribution to our armed forces is tremendous, and long may that continue. He is also wrong to suggest that there is not an increase in the number of recruits coming from the United Kingdom—that is the fact, and it is revealed in the latest survey of where our recruits come from.

Julian Brazier: We must wait until Wednesday to find out how large the cuts in numbers and in the training of our armed forces will be, but may I remind the Secretary of State that the last time the Conservatives held a big defence review, just after the Berlin wall came down, there was a war going on in the Gulf? May I suggest that this is no time to be thinking about cuts? Let us see the Iraq crisis through, and think about cutting afterwards.

Geoff Hoon: The fact is that this Government are spending more on defence. We planned to spend more on defence in each of the last six years, and that will continue in the latest spending review round. The Government who directly preceded us could not make such a claim; indeed, they presided over a cut in defence spending of some 15 per cent. That was not during the period immediately after the cold war, but during a period following the Gulf war, when it was clearly necessary for us to improve our armed forces in the light of lessons learned. The hon. Gentleman's comment—which he will no doubt repeat on Wednesday—could be taken a good deal more seriously if he recognised the cuts imposed by Conservative Governments, and also recognised that this Government are significantly increasing our defence spending.

Dari Taylor: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that over the past 20 years this Government's spending round has provided more money for the armed forces than that of any other Government? In fact, the two Opposition parties are set to cut spending. Would my right hon. Friend not describe that as a testament to the Labour party? Is it not the case that defence is safe in Labour's hands?

Geoff Hoon: I would have some difficulty in disagreeing with my hon. Friend, and let me say for the record that I do not intend to. As Conservative Members wind themselves up and as those in Conservative central office prepare the script for next Wednesday's announcement, they should recognise that we are seeing a sustained increase in defence spending over a longer period than was ever possible under the Conservatives in recent times. That is something of which we are proud, and on which Conservative Members should congratulate us.

Defence Storage and Distribution Agency

Tony Baldry: When he expects to make a decision on the future structure of the Defence Storage and Distribution Agency.

Adam Ingram: In the light of recent commercial developments, a decision on the future defence supply chain can be expected early in 2005.

Tony Baldry: Does the Minister accept that a trading fund could both provide the Ministry of Defence with substantial savings in defence logistic procurement and ensure that Ministers retain the assets in their control? Does he appreciate that many people are keen for Ministers to retain those assets? If Margaret Thatcher were Prime Minister, she would not have lost control of crucial assets of this kind. I find it rather worrying when Ministers are moving further to the right than me.

Adam Ingram: I will not refer to past Tory Administrations. We have already had a good history lesson today about the impact of some of them, under Lady Thatcher and of course John Major, on the armed forces. We need only refer to the spending profiles. The hon. Gentleman should take stock before praying Lady Thatcher in aid.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether a trading fund was recognised as a possible solution. The answer is yes: it is one of the options, although it must be set against what the private sector is offering. We must get that right, so that we can ensure that the supply chain is robust, is there when it is needed, delivers on time and provides value for money.

Defence White Paper (Procurement)

Richard Ottaway: What assessment he has made of the procurement implications of the Defence White Paper.

Geoff Hoon: The defence White Paper made clear that our future force development process is focused on capability and the need to deliver flexible, deployable and hard-hitting forces to perform a range of military tasks. Our procurement plans are configured to provide the equipment required to achieve that goal. I will be making a more detailed statement on Wednesday following the results of the 2004 spending review.

Richard Ottaway: I am grateful to the Secretary of State. What proposals does he have to provide airborne early warning cover to the new aircraft carriers?

Geoff Hoon: The way in which modern ships are provided with defence is quite different from the way in which the previous generation of ships were protected—I believe that is what the hon. Gentleman is alluding to. A multi-layered approach will ensure the safety of ships on deployment.

John Robertson: Will my right hon. Friend give us an update on the MARS—military afloat reach and sustainability—project and the new ships that are going to be built?

Geoff Hoon: I will send my hon. Friend a detailed account of that project and how it is proceeding.

Home Office Strategic Plan

David Blunkett: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the strategic plan for the Home Office, "Confident Communities in a Secure Britain", which sets out our detailed plans for the next five years. It is linked to the joint plan for the criminal justice system that I published alongside a written statement earlier today.
	Fundamental to our strategy is the need to build security, order and stability. Whether in our homes or neighbourhood, a sense of security is the basis of a civilised society, and is central to our economic prosperity and the regeneration of our most deprived communities. Security builds confidence and trust, removes the fear of difference, reinforces social cohesion and enables people to cope with rapid change. In the strategy, we set out plans for both preventive and tough enforcement action. Crucially, these measures are linked to strengthening the assets of the family and the wider community.
	For decades, rising crime and insecurity seemed inevitable. By the mid-1990s crime had risen to the highest levels in the developed world, and fear of crime and antisocial behaviour rose as police numbers fell. Since 1997, we have demonstrated that a very different future is possible. Crime has fallen by well over a quarter, and the chance of being a victim is at its lowest for over 20 years. Since the late 1990s, asylum claims have, as we know, increased substantially—a trend seen across the developed world. In 1997, it took an average of 22 months to reach an initial decision, and only 9,000 failed asylum seekers were removed. Today, with security and immigration controls moved to the French coast, the use of new technology at borders, and the closure of the Sangatte camp, applications have fallen by 60 per cent. in 18 months.
	By investing in communities we are encouraging a new spirit of civic engagement, as evidenced by the additional 1 million men and women who are involved in volunteering, compared with the number involved three years ago. We have put the sense back into sentencing. We have introduced tough minimum terms for murder and longer jail sentences for dangerous offenders. Tough and effective community sentences will replace ineffective short-term custody. Drug abusers are now offered a way out through arrest referral and treatment programmes. All of that is the result of sustained investment and reform, and I thank everyone whose dedication has brought about the transformation.
	Yet challenges remain. International terrorists aim to undermine our freedom and security. Organised criminals build ever more sophisticated international networks. Antisocial behaviour, binge drinking and lower-level thuggery continue to blight the lives of too many people. Gun crime and domestic violence too often lead to serious injury and fear. Our solutions must be rooted in the community. We must change the culture of violence. Respect needs to be restored; responsibility and duty accepted; and parenting seen as an essential contributor to change.
	Our task is to renew the relationship between the citizen and government by putting the interests of law-abiding citizens first, focusing support on individuals and families, and developing stronger partnerships between communities and public service. As part of this, we will re-examine the resources currently directed into local communities, whether in public services or in sustaining families. We will audit how this investment could be used more effectively to prevent, and not simply to ameliorate, poverty.
	We will reinforce, and further invest in, the development of neighbourhood policing teams, complementing and not replacing the intelligence model. These teams will work alongside the communities that they serve, addressing the causes, as well as the manifestations of, criminality. That will contribute to a further 15 per cent. reduction in crime over the next three years. The teams will provide a visible and responsive presence in our communities. Our sustaining of record police numbers—they are up by 12,500 since 1997—will make this possible. We will supplement that by providing the equivalent of 12,000 extra officers on front-line duty and by a sustained reduction in bureaucracy, and as in the NHS and in schools, we are complementing the skills of existing professionals with new support staff. Since 2002, nearly 4,000 community support officers have taken up post.
	I can announce today that, with the agreement of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we are launching a new neighbourhood policing fund, which will be kick-started by £50 million of new money in this financial year—money over and above the spending announced by the Chancellor last Monday. As a result, we will be able to recruit the first tranche of an additional 20,000 community support officers from this autumn. Next year, we will add to this fund and combine it with the current crime fighting fund. That underlines our commitment to fully accredited police officers.
	No Government have done more to increase police numbers, and we will seek to enhance the role of the constable by focusing effort back on to the front line. The development of the national intelligence model will provide the link between neighbourhood policing and the measures needed to tackle high-volume, serious and organised crime. The exchange of necessary information will be enhanced through the development of a new national information technology system for police intelligence. In addition, we will establish a policing improvement agency and thereby rationalise the relevant bodies. We will consult further on this over the summer.
	Neighbourhood policing will go hand in hand with new approaches to targeting offenders. Some 5,000 repeat offenders are responsible for almost one in 10 crimes. That is why we are investing in a new prolific offender programme, which will use tagging and satellite tracking to enhance existing measures. In addition, for lower level offenders we can provide prison without bars, which, combined with mentoring, support, drug treatment and restorative justice, will contribute to reducing re-offending. We will also develop improved and intensified supervision and surveillance programmes.
	In tackling antisocial behaviour, we will extend the current focus, in 12 areas of England and Wales, to a total of 50. That will be matched by the development of our new community justice centres, the first of which will open in Liverpool next year. Additional investment in prison and probation services and in counter-terrorism will supplement the existing plans for next year.
	To build confidence, we must also transform public access to the police. We will set out new consistent standards of customer service. By 2008, we will have a new nationwide non-emergency call number. We will give local communities new powers to require information and to trigger action when problems remain. I will publish our full proposals in a consultative paper later this year.
	Victims and witnesses are at the heart of our policy. The no witness, no justice programme is already making a difference and it will be expanded across the whole of England and Wales. The victims commissioner will hold to account the agencies responsible and a new dedicated victims fund will add to the support available.
	Immigration must not be a political football. Securing legal routes for migration and offering legitimate ways of employment is common sense. We need the skills and enterprise of those prepared to come here to work. To achieve that, we will reinforce existing rigorous controls at our ports and airports to prevent abuse of our immigration system. We will develop new electronic border controls, known as e-borders. That system of automatic tracking of travellers entering and exiting our country will provide monitoring and usable data. That innovative technology will clearly help us with counter-terrorism. Taken together with the introduction of biometric identity cards, these measures will help to ensure that only those legally entitled to be in our country will be able to work, to draw down on services and to have permanent residence here.
	Global terrorism and organised crime require a new level of responsiveness. The creation of the serious and organised crime agency and additional resources for the Security Service and counter-terrorism police will help us tackle those who would destroy our democracy and undermine our well-being. Using the recovered assets agency, we will target those living on the proceeds of crime. Through a new incentivisation programme, we will return those resources to the communities from which they were stolen. From fixed penalty notices to severer penalties, it will be the criminal, not the law-abiding citizen, who pays. We are today laying orders to extend the offences for which a fixed penalty notice is available, targeting under-age drinking, lower-level damage and theft, and the misuse of fireworks.
	The correlation between enforcement and prevention is crucial. We must invest in young people. In addition to the existing resources across government, I can announce today an expansion of the youth inclusion and early intervention programmes. Those will be doubled across England and Wales. From Sure Start to enhanced children's centres, from learning mentors to parenting orders, we will provide a route out of inter-generational disadvantage.
	It is within the communities themselves that we face the biggest challenge. Nowhere is that more important than in race relations and equality. Community cohesion can be achieved only by an awareness of the need for comprehensive and active engagement with faith communities and a coherent drive against racism. I will shortly publish an updated strategy on the way forward. Where those measures will help the most is in reinforcing confidence and belief in our own identity and citizenship. For those seeking naturalisation, the learning of English and citizenship and the ceremonies of celebration are reinforcing a sense of belonging.
	We have a choice: to work together to overcome insecurity, instability and fear, or to deny the role of government; to match tough enforcement, with investment, support and powers for local communities or to do nothing to build respect and overcome alienation.
	We on the Government Benches are clear. We will put the law-abiding citizen first. We will invest in the modernisation of policing and we will develop new forms of community engagement appropriate for the 21st century. We seek a partnership with all those willing to join in this critical task. That is why I commend this statement to the House.

James Paice: I apologise on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis), who could not be in the House today. I also thank the Home Secretary for an early copy of the statement.
	From this morning's headlines and programmes, we could have been forgiven for thinking that the Home Secretary's statement would be entirely dedicated to dealing with antisocial behaviour. This morning the Prime Minister rejected the Labour Government of the 1960s and the actions of his mentor, Lord Jenkins. But for the ordinary people of Britain, there was no liberal consensus, as the Prime Minister suggests. They did not want political correctness stuffed down their throats. They did not want to be intimidated by young hooligans or to have to step over vomit in the streets. In the light of the Prime Minister's statement this morning, will the Labour party—and for that matter, the Liberal Democrats—apologise for all their bedfellows of the past 30 years, who told us that the criminal was the real victim? Or is it just another example of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary grabbing headlines without substance? Why should we believe this lot of initiatives? Why should we believe that they are any better than the 155 others that we have had since the last election?
	We welcome the extra resources for our security services and for anti-terrorism measures. In principle, we welcome the resources for crime reduction, although they fall significantly short of our commitment to fund the extra 40,000 police officers necessary to achieve the quantum leap we need if we are to get real neighbourhood policing to work.
	A year ago, the Home Secretary published his last strategic review. He was going to reduce crime, the fear of crime and antisocial behaviour. Today, he claims a reduction in crime that no one believes. That is not surprising because he is counting only part of the figures. His figures exclude illegal drug use, which is up 16 per cent.; retail crime, which has doubled; sexual offences, which are up 42 per cent.; and, most importantly, crime against young people, which is also up. The truth is that after falling for five years under the Conservatives, recorded crime is up by 800,000 a year under Labour. Violent crime is at an all-time high and there was a gun crime every hour of every day last year. With the latest crime figures due out this week, is it not the case that violent crime will be up again?
	Last year, the Home Secretary also set a target to ensure effective delivery of justice. That was a laudable aim, but the good intention has failed. The proportion of convictions and cautions compared with recorded crime fell to its lowest level for well over a decade. It peaked in 1997, and has fallen, year in year out, under Labour. Why?
	Now the comprehensive spending review sets new targets, including to reduce crime by 15 per cent. in high-crime areas. Will the Home Secretary tell us specifically which the high-crime areas are? What are the baseline figures, so that we can judge whether he achieves his target? He pledges to improve the delivery of justice by increasing the number of crimes for which an offender is brought to justice to 1.25 million. That is another laudable aim, but the figure has not reached 1.1 million under Labour and is falling, so how does he expect to achieve it?
	The Home Secretary pledges to reduce unfounded asylum claims—

Hazel Blears: He has done it.

James Paice: Well, the Home Secretary pledges to do it in the future. The Minister should read the review that was published last week. What is the baseline against which he can be judged in a year's time? What is also obvious is the long list of targets that have disappeared. Can the Home Secretary tell us whether that is because he accepts our position that there are too many targets, or because virtually none have been met or have any chance of being met?
	The Home Secretary refers to 12,000 extra police officers and says that the police can make 3 per cent. annual efficiency gains. They probably can, but not unless he lifts the yoke of central bureaucracy from their shoulders. So when he gets rid of 2,700 civil servants, how many forms, how many targets, how many ring-fenced funds and how many Home Office units will go with them?
	The Home Secretary refers to tagging. Will he clarify whether he considers the tagging of prolific criminals as part of their sentences? Is that an expansion of the early release scheme, which we were told last week would not be expanded, or is it a long-term protection for the public, especially from paedophiles? Is tagging really a sufficient punishment, or is it driven by prison overcrowding?
	The Home Secretary pledges in his statement to develop new electronic border controls. He says that a system of automatic tracking of travellers entering and exiting our country will provide monitoring and data. Will he explain what he is saying? Is he today announcing the re-introduction of embarkation controls? If so, of course, we welcome that adoption of Conservative policy as an effective measure to control immigration.
	The Home Secretary also says that he will give local people power to ensure that laws are implemented. What does that mean? I agree with him, of course, that antisocial behaviour has many causes and that the community needs to be involved, but who is he blaming for not using the law—the police, the Crown Prosecution Service or the courts system?
	The Home Secretary has announced the extension of fixed penalties. Will they work? Does he really think that they are what people want? I suggest to him that people want a penalty that is both a deterrent and that provides a chance of rehabilitation. They do not want a minor penalty that becomes a badge of honour for some young oik.
	The Home Secretary also refers to the increase in community support officers. Let me repeat our support for the role of civilians in helping the police. Our concern has always been about giving them police powers, especially the power of detention. So what has happened to the review of those powers, which we were promised at the time of the legislation, or the national evaluation that the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), promised only last week, an hour before the Chancellor announced 20,000 more CSOs?
	Will the Home Secretary tell us what discretion chief constables will have over the use of the money? Will they be able to spend it instead on full police officers? If not, what has happened to his drive for local accountability? What happened to his statement in last year's White Paper that
	"Home Office research has found that delegation of resources and responsibilities can . . . increase responsiveness"?
	The people of this country are fed up with units, targets and initiatives. They want a Government who do not confuse good intent with achievement. When a crime is committed, they want a police officer, not an incident number. What they have got is centralised control, 10,000 more bureaucrats, 40-plus units, overcrowded prisons, record crime levels and a Home Secretary who says that he has not got a clue how many illegal immigrants are in the country. What they are offered is a new public service target of reassurance—a new word for spin, a patronising word from a Government who know best. Does the Home Secretary realise that reassurance will come not from words or money alone, but from results: fewer crimes, quicker justice, secure borders and a Government on the side of the law-abiding? He cannot buy reassurance; it will come by itself when he delivers the rest.

David Blunkett: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his second appearance in two Mondays. The Opposition Front Bench is characterised this afternoon by no money, no policy and no shadow Home Secretary. I am almost beginning to forget what he looks like—he has been missing two Mondays running.
	Let me take the questions that have been raised head on. Yes, when we have got in place the electronic border surveillance, we intend to reintroduce embarkation controls, which were abandoned 10 years ago, as hon. Members know, under the former Conservative Government. However, that was understandable because, without the new electronic surveillance and computer system, such controls were a complete waste of time. If we do not know who has come in, there is no point in trying to track who goes out. If we do not have identity cards, we do not know who is here anyway, so we cannot know whether they are legitimate or not in terms of drawing down on services. I am glad that we are agreed on that.
	We appear to be agreed that we should all be tackling antisocial behaviour. The hon. Gentleman asked me about fixed-penalty notices. Some 20,000 fixed-penalty notices have been issued, and they are effective and speedy. They contribute to the reduction in bureaucracy that the police service has been seeking. They ensure that, instead of four to five hours for arrest, a fixed-penalty notice can be issued within 30 minutes. That means that the police can go about their business rather than returning to the station. It means therefore that we can release people for front-line services and we can bring in civilian staff to undertake the backroom work. That, again, frees police officers to do their job. The 20,000 additional community support officers are available on the streets on a permanent basis. That frees the rest of the community beat team and their colleagues to target particular offenders, including prolific offenders, who cause so much havoc in the community.
	Yes, the prolific offenders programme will involve electronic tagging and satellite tracking. The hon. Gentleman asked me whether that would be instead of prison sentences. No, it will be part of the new supervision programme that was passed in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and it can really be effective as part of that programme only if we know exactly where people are and can track their movements down to the last few metres. This will be a major drive to prevent the scourge of prolific offenders, and often prolific victims. That is why our victims programme is so crucial.
	On immigration, we have a record to be proud of. We have turned round a major problem in world movements and, from 18 months ago, we have reduced unwarranted asylum claims by 60 per cent. The baseline level is 2002, but we are actually saying that we will reduce unwarranted asylum claims year on year, so we will be reinforcing that message.
	The hon. Gentleman asked me what baseline we would use and how we made a judgment on the areas with the greatest density of crime. For the first time ever, a baseline assessment is published on the website that shows a comparator force by force and command unit by command unit in terms of the crimes committed and therefore the density and proliferation of crime. We and the force at local level can target resources to make that happen.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether we would give freedom to chief constables. They already have it. We will, of course, provide the funding for the additional community support officers and, through the police grant and the amalgamation of the crime fighting fund, the retention of the record police numbers that we have put in place. They will have the freedom to use those resources sensibly. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is heckling from a sedentary position, as his colleagues did throughout my statement; they were not really interested.
	Police chiefs will obviously be able to make decisions about deployment and they will not be rigidly told that they can employ only community support officers. When we passed the legislation to bring these in, both Opposition parties said that police forces would not use them and that the police service would not welcome them. Well, every police force in the land is clamouring for them; neighbourhoods are clamouring for them. What people want is not more of one thing and less of another; they want more of both. They want uniformed constables and an intelligence model; they want community support officers; they want us to clamp down on organised crime; they want to treat drug users sensibly; and they want to reinvest in youth inclusion and overcoming criminality by young people.
	In short, people want us to have the comprehensive overview, the coherent policy and the balance of prevention and enforcement that I have laid out this afternoon. No other political party, now or in the past, has laid out such a comprehensive and, in my view, balanced programme. In doing so, I am proud to be Home Secretary.

Mark Oaten: I thank the Home Secretary for advance notice of his statement. We agree with much of it. There is certainly a need to tackle the increase in unacceptable behaviour, although I am at a loss to understand why the Prime Minister is blaming the liberal culture of the 1960s for that because I would have thought that the culture of the 1980s might have more to do with it.
	The Home Secretary's measures to increase numbers of community support officers are welcome, but does he agree that many of our police still spend far too much time stuck in stations filling in forms? Will he today commit to increasing the amount of technology, such as palm tops and mobile fingerprinting, that police have so that they can be seen much more out in the streets, where the public want them? He made no mention of his plans to have directly elected police authorities, so have they now been abandoned?
	This morning, the Prime Minister raised the issue of holding some trials without juries. Liberal Democrats will oppose that. The Home Secretary will remember that, at the time of his heavy defeat on the matter in Parliament last year, he gave a commitment that no new measure would be introduced without cross-party talks. Does he stick by that commitment?
	The Government said that they would be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. We have had much focus on tough-sounding measures, but little on causes. With that in mind, does the Home Secretary recognise the urgent need to do much more to tackle the terrible rates of reoffending, with up to 70 per cent. of 20-year-olds who leave prison reoffending? Is it not time for a greater focus on education and training, with a tough prison regime, to target those issues?
	The Home Secretary again raises ID cards in his main document. Does he not agree that the £3 billion cost of introducing them would make our country safer much more effectively if it were spent on more police and more technology for them?

David Blunkett: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that vote of confidence. I think that we all agree that we need to get police out of the station. We are spending £800 million on information technology in the criminal justice system and £500 million on the Airwave system. It is crucial that we develop the most extensive system for using DNA in the world and ensure that people are trained to use such technology. The enhanced police national computer and the information intelligence model that I outlined in my statement are vital parts of achieving that.
	We need to invest in avoiding repeated and prolific offending and in introducing restorative justice, so I was pleased that the Conservative shadow Minister agreed with that on the radio this morning. We are starting to get somewhere and agreeing what we need to do, although we are not all in agreement on whether we are prepared to raise the money for that. Labour Members are.
	It is absolutely true that we will ask people to make a contribution towards biometric ID cards, but as I explained to the House at considerable length earlier in the year, the system will be associated with updating the security on passports, which we have to do. We will thus introduce biometrics on passports at the same time as ID cards, so it will cost an additional £4 per person, over a 10-year period, to issue the card rather than simply having a biometric passport. We do not have to spend £3 billion because, as people renew their passports, they will pay as they get the biometric cards. I thought that I should explain that at length so that people understand the system and realise that we are not diverting money from what we are doing elsewhere.
	Let me be clear that we agree with the Liberal Democrats on many issues, such as training programmes in prisons. Some 50,000 prisoners are now getting basic education, but no systematic education programmes existed in 1997. We also agree that we should introduce work programmes, but we cannot spend the same money twice. We must all agree what resources are available and what they should be spent on. Last week, the Chancellor allocated to the Home Office for next year—not just for 2006–07—an additional £140 million for correctional services, and I want to spend that not only on expanding the prison estate, but on providing alternatives. If we can do that, we will turn round the dangers that exist in our communities.
	The hon. Gentleman cannot tell people that the Liberal Democrats are in favour of clamping down on antisocial behaviour and crime, yet vote against such measures in the House. The Liberal Democrats cannot vote against closing crack houses, dispersal and curfew powers, expansion of antisocial behaviour orders, fast-track evictions—

Mark Oaten: We did not.

David Blunkett: When the Liberal Democrats vote against the Second and Third Readings of a Bill, they are voting against it. Week after week we will expose the duplicity in every way we can, so that at the general election those who mistakenly voted Liberal Democrat in Leicester, South and earlier in Brent, East will understand precisely what they voted for: open borders, open crack houses, open to exploitation.

Alan Simpson: Will my right hon. Friend look carefully at two aspects of antisocial behaviour that we need to tackle? One is to build on the record of intervention schemes that work. We have a fantastic scheme in my constituency called Wheelbase. It has a remarkable record of intervening with youngsters involved in multiple car thefts, but exists on hand-to-mouth funding year in, year out. We have to try and break the cycle of game-show funding for the schemes that work. If he is looking for a source of revenue to pay for that, let us consider the commercial interests who fund the licensing problems of binge drinking that plague our inner cities and pour drink into young people before they are poured out on to the streets, leaving the local authorities and the police with the problems of clearing up?

David Blunkett: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We need not only investment, but consistent investment in programmes that are working. In addition to resources from the Home Office through the Youth Justice Board, we have the potential to put together the Connexions programme, the new community safety fund on which we will work jointly with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the expanded neighbourhood renewal fund. It is crucial that we do so. There is a major role for those who make a profit out of the industries concerned to contribute in return. That is why an expanded business improvement district programme should be the opportunity to get agreement on putting something back in for those who get something out.

Patrick Cormack: Will the Home Secretary explain to the House in simple Queen's English three or four things that my constituents and those of other hon. Members can expect to see during the next 12 months as a result of his statement today?

David Blunkett: More police, more community support officers, more fixed-penalty notices, the expansion of the curfew and dispersal powers, the universal expansion of the justice care scheme for witnesses that I have just announced, and the youth intervention programme, which will be doubled. I announced all those things in my statement. I think that that is four.

Tony Lloyd: In hard-pressed inner-city areas such as mine, people will be grateful for the comprehensiveness of my right hon. Friend's statement, covering everything from the most serious crime through to vandalism. May I draw his attention to the question of how we assess the performance of the police? For example, my police force—Greater Manchester police—is often near the bottom of most measures of police performance. The public in a city such as mine are entitled to know whether that is because we need better policing or whether, as Greater Manchester police claim, they are underfunded. It is important for the public to know that they are getting value for money from the police in Manchester and throughout the country.

David Blunkett: I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend. The increase in resources is important for the expansion of programmes and numbers, but the quality of policing, which has improved under the leadership of Mike Todd in Greater Manchester, is crucial as well. The assessment process now allows us to examine the family of forces so that we can compare like with like, which seems perfectly fair. It is important to reinforce the improvement that is taking place in one area by spreading it to others, which is why the police standards unit, working with the inspectorate, is doing just that. Greater Manchester police, with considerable encouragement from my hon. Friend the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety in relation to organised gang and gun crime, has shown substantial improvements. There is still a long way to go, and the process of accountability at local level, not necessarily with fully directly elected police authorities, but with revised democratically accountable functions at both command unit and force level, will drive that from the bottom up, as well as from the top down.

Teddy Taylor: Does the Home Secretary agree that excessive alcohol consumption is responsible for a huge percentage of violent crimes and antisocial behaviour? Is he willing to discuss with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills tuition in secondary schools on the nightmares that excessive alcohol consumption can cause? Is he also willing to look again at the consequences of 24-hour pubs?

David Blunkett: Forty-four per cent. of all violent crime is alcohol-driven. It is necessary to provide education and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should undertake to do so. Of course, it is right that we should keep under review the changes—although people keep grumbling that they have made a tremendous difference, they have not yet been implemented—to the licensing laws. We have already made it clear that we would need to take action if we found that greater deregulation and flexibility were damaging.

Siobhain McDonagh: I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, particularly with regard to the new neighbourhood policing fund, which will have £50 million. My constituency has four police reassurance wards, and I am willing to offer my constituency if any hon. Member does not want police community support officers or police reassurance teams. Will he look at the hours of operation of police reassurance schemes, because they currently end at 10 pm and we need to consider how to extend them?

David Blunkett: I thank my hon. Friend, who has done a sterling job in her constituency in mobilising the community and working with the police. We need to look at the working hours and we could open up that matter and discuss it with appropriate representatives.

James Clappison: May I gently remind the Home Secretary that all the issues that he has raised today in respect of antisocial behaviour were raised by his predecessor when this Government came to power in 1997? The fact that he is still talking about them today and that the Prime Minister is still sexing them up is the clearest possible proof that the answers that the Government claimed to have in 1997 have not been the overwhelming success that the Government claimed that they would be. May I invite the Home Secretary to look instead at much tougher and more obvious and readily useable powers to deal with antisocial behaviour in the community, such as taking away tenancies from antisocial tenants, even though that may cost him the vote of confidence that he received from the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), since the Liberal Democrats opposed it tooth and nail and kept antisocial tenants in place?

David Blunkett: Of course we are building on measures that we put in place in our first Parliament. This is the same Government, and we are building on, reinforcing and learning from those measures. That is why we have introduced fast-track and interim antisocial behaviour orders and why we have learned from the problems in implementing curfews. I have revised the arrangements so that we have had dozens of curfew and dispersal orders since 1 April, when the measures came into force. It is also why we learned about what needed to be done with regard to crack houses and antisocial tenants, and why, both in housing and antisocial behaviour legislation, we introduced new forms of tenancy ensuring that permanent, secure tenancies can be reversed. Where people continue to behave in an antisocial fashion, they can be fast-track evicted. All those things build on what was there, expand it, learn from it and put in place measures to allow the community to drive the change. I would have thought that that was very welcome.

Liz Blackman: What further steps can my right hon. Friend take to persuade the very few chief constables left who have not done so, including the chief constable of Derbyshire, to take up community support officers? Does my right hon. Friend agree that they make a huge difference? The constituents of Erewash look across the border into Nottinghamshire and want a slice of the action. At the moment, we are experiencing some resistance. Can he help?

David Blunkett: I suggest that my hon. Friend recommend that her constituents and those across Derbyshire write to the chairman of the police authority in Derbyshire demanding that the Derbyshire force take up the money that is available so that constituents, including me and the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), can enjoy wonderful, peaceful weekends in the Peak district, including in Baslow, where my car was scratched on Sunday afternoon.

Annabelle Ewing: Asylum and immigration policy is one of the powers that the Home Secretary still has over Scotland. In the context of the five-year strategic statement, will he tell us his plans to expand Dungavel removal centre?

David Blunkett: We have already announced the expansion at Dungavel, which is not for families and children, but for single men and women. The hon. Lady will recall her intervention one week ago and that she must tread carefully when she raises Dungavel with me.

Adrian Bailey: I welcome the Home Secretary's statement and in particular his comments about the introduction of a non-emergency telephone number. In my experience, nothing undermines confidence in the police more than communication problems with the local police station. We should have not only a non-emergency telephone number, but adequate back-up staff and a procedure to ensure that such problems are gone for ever.

David Blunkett: The best thing that I can say is, "Spot on." All hon. Members know that that is one of our constituents' biggest gripes, and we must get the issue right. The point is not only whether the phone is picked up, but whether the system can properly judge the weight and repetition of a problem. The new computerised system tracks such calls and makes sure that the police and community support officers get to the area as fast as possible. The system is about not only reassurance, but decent customer service, so my hon. Friend is entirely right.

Andrew MacKay: Does the Home Secretary accept that my constituents will not be impressed by his statement, because the police are hopelessly overstretched in our part of the Thames valley? My constituents rarely see a police officer, and one reason why so many of them have stopped reporting crime is because there is no point in doing so.

David Blunkett: We have 10 per cent. more police and 4,000 extra CSOs compared with 1997. Using the same methodology, criteria and year-on-year comparators, crime has decreased by more than one quarter since 1997—sex offences are now counted, which is one of the few points raised by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) that I did not answer. Given all that, why is policing so bad in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Bracknell (Mr. Mackay)? We must ask both the police and ourselves that question. That is why Peter Neyroud is so important in driving change in the Thames valley.

Clive Efford: I welcome my right hon. Friend's emphasis on community policing. At the last Greater London authority election, both the Liberals and the Conservatives pledged to cut the money that the Mayor is using to roll out community safety teams across London, so we will take no lectures from them. If the programme is to succeed, we must expand work with young people to divert them from crime in the first place, which is why I welcome the roll-out of the youth inclusion programme. Many initiatives in the local community are led by people from the community, including young people's parents, who want facilities for young people to be expanded to stop young people getting involved in crime in the first place. Will my right hon. Friend undertake to ensure that when the YIP money becomes available, local communities are engaged in finding solutions at the grassroots level?

David Blunkett: I entirely agree with that point. Last Friday, I saw a YIP working extremely well. It was turning around the lives and the hope of young people who had been involved in substantial criminality or who were in real danger of becoming involved in substantial criminality—the issue is about the hope of a better tomorrow. We must ensure that YIPs are joined up with the extended school programme, weekend and after-school activities and the Connexions service, in which we are investing large sums of money. Getting the matter right is a matter of common sense, but it is also prudent, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would say, because in the long run it will save us a great deal of money as well as heartache.

Edward Garnier: In May 2001, no doubt following extensive Cabinet discussion and in order to speed up the criminal justice system, the Prime Minister announced the establishment of night courts. Can the Home Secretary tell me where I can go to watch one of those courts at work? In which cities are they, and what hours do they sit?

David Blunkett: As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, we introduced three pilot night courts, they were not successful and we did not pursue them. I have no problem at all in experimenting and innovating, and then being big enough to say, with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, "This isn't working, so let's not waste any more time doing it."

Kate Hoey: I warmly welcome, as will my constituents, the extra resources that are going into policing and community support officers. However, will the Home Secretary bear in mind the special nature of inner-London constituencies such as Vauxhall, which contains high-profile security targets? That means that many of our extra resources are directed there, leaving community estates in the more deprived areas without the benefits of the extra policing. Will my right hon. Friend, in conjunction with the Metropolitan Police Authority, consider a different way of policing the areas on the south bank just opposite the Houses of Parliament?

David Blunkett: Yes, the new chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, Len Duval, and I will examine how best to do that. In addition to the money that I announced, next year there will be an additional £50 million for policing and counter-terrorism. It is right and proper that the particular pressures faced by the Metropolitan police are recognised and that a combination of additional community support officers and uniformed police can be deployed. Displacement is a problem not only for inner-city constituencies such as that of my hon. Friend, but for outer boroughs, whose neighbourhoods are left vulnerable when people have to be taken out of their normal duties for particular events. It is crucial to get the balance right.

John Redwood: What are these improvements in policing that the Home Secretary thinks he needs a quango to bring about? Does that replace the current policy of sacking top cops when he does not like what they are doing?

David Blunkett: I have not sacked top cops and I never will. As I spelled out fairly clearly, we are trying to build on what is already in place. I am not entirely sure whether the right hon. Gentleman is for or against what we are doing.

John Redwood: I am asking what the right hon. Gentleman is doing.

David Blunkett: I have already explained that we will discuss bringing together into an improvement agency the range of bodies at national level that deal with policing excellence, training and the like. I should have thought that hon. Members would warmly welcome a rationalisation that will bring major gains in administration and coherence.

Alan Howarth: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, through all the vagaries of fashion in policing over decades, our constituents have continued to say that they want regular, uniformed patrols in their neighbourhoods? Is it not the case that community support officers have already been welcomed as symbols of the authority of the local community and its insistence that law and order be maintained? Will not the additional resources and numbers that my right hon. Friend announced reinforce confidence and optimism among law-abiding citizens?

David Blunkett: They certainly will. That is the experience of the neighbourhood policing teams, which comprise uniformed police and CSOs working with them. They have demonstrated admirably that that is what people want. It is time to respond to that and I commend the retiring Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, who was big enough to say that the change in policing a decade ago had not succeeded and that it was time to return to the community.

Desmond Swayne: Why did the Prime Minister announce that the Government would withhold housing benefit as a means of tackling antisocial behaviour only for them to abandon that proposal?

David Blunkett: Because my right hon. Friend was trying to show that rights and responsibilities, duties and obligations go hand in hand. Any policy that reinforces that is worthy of examination. If we have ideas—not the sort of ideas that I heard on this morning's "Today" programme from someone who claimed to be the director of an organisation for ideas, but ideas that change people's lives—it is right to float them. Not only the Prime Minister, but other colleagues and I will continue to float ideas even if cynics keep knocking them down.

Martin Salter: The Home Secretary knows that all agencies have been in the forefront of the fight against crime and antisocial behaviour in Reading using the welcome new powers that the Department introduced. We have street crime wardens, drug action teams and ASBOs, as well as more police officers on our streets. All those measures have proved their worth in cutting crime but does my right hon. Friend agree that, unless the Government ensure that magistrates courts have more resources and that magistrates are properly trained in, and are aware of, the powers that are available to them, one important piece of the jigsaw will be missing?

David Blunkett: Yes. That is the reason for the new public prosecutors who are directly linked to antisocial behaviour—currently in 12 areas but shortly in 50—and the introduction of specialist courts where there is intensive need. When antisocial behaviour courts need to be established as part of the existing system, we must do that. However, the ultimate message must be that magistrates and district judges have to clamp down heavily on breaches of existing orders. Otherwise, those who breach the orders will get the wrong message and the community will become disillusioned.

Eric Forth: If the proposal is all that good, why has it taken seven years to get around to it? Why should anybody believe the Home Secretary when he says, "Trust me, it will all be much better next year"?

David Blunkett: I could say, "Trust me" because things have got a lot better in the three years that I have been Home Secretary. Even since 1 April, when measures under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003—whose introduction we had to fight through Parliament—began to take effect, a discernible change has occurred in those areas that have begun to implement the provisions. Anyone who represents those areas knows that that is true. Why has it taken seven years? Because we have been busy introducing all the other measures before getting around to the one that we are discussing. The idea that there is a year zero, that one day after an election we pass everything and life is okay and that we make a further judgment five years later is nonsense. The right hon. Gentleman used to be shadow Leader of the House. It is a good job that he was a shadow and that he no longer fills that position.

David Cairns: There is a clear link between crime and the ready availability of cheap hard drugs. It would therefore make sense to try to stop as many of those drugs as possible getting into the country. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that his strategic plan envisages closer working with his European counterparts to clamp down on trafficking hard drugs, especially the 95 per cent. of heroin on Britain's streets that starts life in Afghanistan?

David Blunkett: Yes. It is a difficult issue that will form part of the forward programme for the Dutch presidency, the Luxembourg presidency and the United Kingdom presidency this time next year. It is difficult because we are dealing with sources and with tracking the organised criminals. That is why the serious organised crime agency, working not only from this country but with a revamped Europol, will be vital to achieve some real gains.

Michael Clapham: My right hon. Friend knows that the prolific offenders programme kicks off in South Yorkshire on 6   September. I stress that it will work. It gives the opportunity of a gateway out of crime for many young people. However, we require residential units in South Yorkshire for those young people, many of whom have spent a life on the streets. Will funding be available for residential units?

David Blunkett: I commend my hon. Friend, who, as chair of his community safety partnership, has been driving change in his constituency and across the metropolitan district. Yes, we need to look at forms of residential support. We put in our document that we also need to look at intensive fostering, because if we can get those in their teens away from the dangers and the peer group pressure that they face in their home environment, we shall be doing them a big favour. I think that that is the way forward.

Anne Campbell: May I thank the Home Secretary for his recent announcement of £960,000 extra for Cambridgeshire police to deal with the policing of demonstrations against Huntingdon Life Sciences, many of which take place in my constituency? Is it part of his strategic plan to introduce further measures to protect the innocent people who work in scientific establishments and to deal with the animal rights terrorists?

David Blunkett: Yes I will and we will introduce a new programme pulling together what has already taken place, which we will announce within the next three weeks. I am deeply sorry that those who have been involved with the programme in Oxford have felt, for a whole variety of reasons, that their viability was threatened. I make no bones about the fact that it is necessary to find alternatives to the use of experiments on animals where we can, so I make no apology for having supported humane research in the past. It is vital, however, that we bear down with everything that we have on those terrorists in our own community who intimidate, damage and scare away those who would invest in perfectly legal, legitimate, properly licensed and regulated research. We are all clear about that.

Kelvin Hopkins: I share the serious concern of my right hon. Friend and other hon. Members about the effects of alcohol and their implications for crime and disorder. Does he accept that a major factor involved is the easy availability of oceans of cheap alcohol, that it is time seriously to consider legislation to insist on minimum prices for alcohol in retail and licensed premises and to restrict the floods of cheap alcohol coming in from the continent of Europe?

David Blunkett: Two critical issues here are the need to step up our response to the smuggling of alcohol through Customs coming into the serious organised crime agency, and the price at which alcohol is sold on the street at a particular time. I and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport had a very constructive meeting with representatives of the industry three weeks ago. If their code works, the pressure that they will be bringing to bear within the industry will reduce the incidence of happy hours and other promotions that damage the chance of avoiding the misuse of alcohol. We have made it clear to them, however, that if it does not work, we would be prepared to legislate.

Stephen McCabe: I welcome the Home Secretary's proposals to use satellite tracking technology to keep tabs on prolific offenders and early-release candidates. Given the start- up costs of the equipment involved, why do we not also use it to show the public that curfew orders and banning orders will be rigorously enforced?

David Blunkett: I believe that, as we manage to get the technology in place, and if we can spread it, we shall be able to do that. At the moment, however, we are keen to use it in two ways: first, with those who would otherwise go to prison for non-violent first offences; and, secondly, with those prolific and dangerous offenders who are on supervision. If we can get that programme in place quickly, it will be worth its weight in gold, and we can then extend it to ensure that the same policing methodology is not needed to keep track of those on curfew orders.

Wayne David: I welcome the Home Secretary's statement—indeed, it will be welcomed by millions of people up and down the country—and I particularly welcome the commitment that he has made to community support officers. There is no doubt that they have been an outstanding success. Would he consider introducing a modest extension to the powers of CSOs at an opportune time?

David Blunkett: As part of the evaluation, it is our intention to review the powers available to CSOs. Without in any way threatening the clear distinction between those powers and police powers, we think that that would be very helpful.

Huw Irranca-Davies: May I, through my right hon. Friend, thank his Home Office ministerial colleague, the Minister for Crime Reduction, Policing and Community Safety, for her visit to my constituency a week last Friday? I could have chosen to take her to Maesteg, where a brand new police station, six community support officers funded through the communities first programme, and some of the 300-odd new police officers in south Wales would have been in evidence. What joy can he bring to the community to which I did take her, Nantymoel, where people do not see the evidence of that programme being rolled out, and the priorities of the police or local authorities are not reflected? What provision has he made to extend the power of accountability to those communities so that they can take charge of their own policing?

David Blunkett: First, in terms of the police reform and accountability agenda, at panel and forum level in the neighbourhood, as well as through the division, the voice of the community will be heard. Secondly, where there are additional resources, the community will be able to decide where those can be deployed and on what priority, as I saw this morning in Camden, where that has been extremely successful with the Metropolitan police. Thirdly, where there are major problems, the local community can trigger the necessary meetings and, if necessary, the snap inspection that I talked about in my statement. All those matters need to be handled with sensitivity for the reasons that I gave: we do not want vexatious activity; we want people collaborating in partnership.

Kevin Brennan: Will my right hon. Friend acknowledge that it is not so much the legacy of the 1960s as the legacy of the 1980s that was damaging to communities such as the one that I represent, which were decimated by policies introduced by a Government who said that there was no such thing as society, and that mass unemployment was a price worth paying for low inflation? His approach to try to rebuild confidence in those communities is therefore absolutely right. What can we do to make sure that the policies that he announces are introduced at that local level?

David Blunkett: As I have made clear in broadcast interviews, I believe that the 1980s and early 1990s, with the massive increase in unemployment, the fall in police numbers and the individualisation and selfishness of society being reinforced, were a disaster for all of us, and we are reaping that now. That is why not only reinforcing citizenship and civic renewal but ensuring that powers exist at that level to command change is important. We also need to examine the idea of co-funding, whereby we put up resources, and local neighbourhoods have the power to raise and match spending. That is currently being done through regeneration budgets and it may be done where local residents wish to raise a levy. That occurs in relation to tenants and residents associations, and some parts of the country are keen for us to examine whether that could be done. Again, it would be targeted on the most deprived areas, so that it would not be the wealthiest—who could do it for themselves—but the most deprived who would benefit most.

Vera Baird: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the range and diversity of his plans, which hold much promise, not only for now but for our third term. Does he intend tagging to be used to tag domestic violence criminals out of premises where their victims live, as well as tagging other kinds of criminals to stay at home? Can I ask him to exercise care in the use of the restorative justice in domestic violence cases, where the imbalance of power and the emotional links between victim and offender can make restorative justice oppressive?

David Blunkett: On the latter point, it is true that we would not wish to use restorative justice in circumstances in which the victim feels threatened. It would be entirely wrong to do so. All of us, however, accept the responsibility for payments for children in that family. The first issue is an interesting one. One would only wish to track or tag an individual to maintain their presence in an area, or out of area, in the more serious cases, for obvious reasons, not least because it would be uneconomic to do otherwise. It is an interesting idea, however, which the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Mr. Goggins), who is responsible for correctional services, will take away and reflect on.

Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)

Melanie Johnson: I beg to move,
	That the programme order of 21st June 2004 in relation to the Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords] be varied as follows:
	Proceedings on consideration and Third Reading
	1.   Paragraphs 4 and 5 (proceedings on consideration and Third Reading) shall be omitted.
	2.   Proceedings on consideration and Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion two hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order.
	The motion amends the programme order agreed on 21 June. The only changes are to paragraphs 4 and 5 of the original programme order, which made provision for proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.

Andrew Lansley: It might be convenient to the Minister to know that we are not going to oppose the motion. The sooner we begin our genuine debate, the better.

Melanie Johnson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I can therefore expedite matters. I believe that new clause 1 is next on the agenda.
	Question put and agreed to.

Orders of the Day
	 — 
	Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]

As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.

New Clause 1
	 — 
	Infection control standards

'(1)   For the purpose of the exercise of its functions under section 2(1)(a) and (b) the Agency may prepare and publish statements of standards.
	(2)   The Agency must keep such standards under review and may publish amended standards whenever it considers it appropriate.
	(3)   The Agency must consult the appropriate authority and such other persons as the Agency considers appropriate—
	(a)   before publishing a statement under this section;
	(b)   before publishing an amended statement under this section which in the opinion of the Agency effects a substantial change in the standards.
	(4)   The standards set out in statements under this section are to be taken into account by every English NHS body, Welsh NHS body and cross-border SHA in discharging its duty under section 45 (quality in health care) of the Health and Social Care (Comunity Health and Standards) Act 2003 (c.43).
	(5)   This section does not extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland.'.—[Mr. Lansley.]
	Brought up, and read the First time.

Andrew Lansley: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
	The Bill has not been the subject of detail or aggressive controversy. We are all working towards one objective, which is to reach a point at which patients in the NHS, and the public generally, are protected to the maximum possible extent. A key part of that objective is securing good-quality infection control, not least in the NHS.
	It will not have escaped the House's notice that since the Committee stage there have been further developments in the control of hospital-acquired infection in particular—developments that have led Conservative Members to believe that one further change is required before the Bill completes its passage.
	The Health Protection Agency's function under the Bill is to promote measures to prevent the spread and promote the control of infectious diseases both in the community and in the NHS. New clause 1 provides that when standards are published for NHS bodies, the agency—as an independent body—would have power to publish those standards. English and Welsh NHS bodies would then have legal responsibility to have regard to them in the pursuit of their duties, and they would become part of the framework of health care standards that is intended to be the subject of inspections by the Healthcare Commission in due course.
	We would not have been minded to do this but for the particular nature of the Government's failure in regard to the publication and pursuit of standards relating to hospital-acquired infection. Last week the National Audit Office published its progress report on reducing the risk of hospital-acquired infection. Appendix 1 includes details of developments in the surveillance of hospital-acquired infection since its report on 2000. A number of actions had been taken before then, which are not described in the report but include the publication of work by the working party consisting of, among others, the Infection Control Nurses Association, the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and the Hospital Infection Society. Those bodies worked together to produce guidelines for the control of MRSA infection, originally back in 1998.
	In 1999, controls assurance standards were issued, the first of which dealt with hospital-acquired infection. Given that standards against which NHS bodies were supposed to assess their performance were already in place, the regularity with which Ministers and their agencies have published guidance is astonishing. In February 2000, they published a programme of action. In May 2000, NHS Estates published standards for environmental cleanliness. In June 2000, "An organisation with a memory: report of an expert group on learning from adverse events in the NHS" was published dealing with inspection control.
	Guidelines on preventing health care-associated infections were commissioned by the Department of Health and published in the Journal of Hospital Infection in January 2001. In April 2001, national standards of cleanliness for the NHS were published by NHS Estates, and the requirement for mandatory surveillance of rates for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus was issued. "Building a safer NHS for patients" was published in July 2001 as a follow-up to "An organisation with a memory". In the same month, the Government responded to a report from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, and in January 2002, the chief medical officer published "Getting Ahead of The Curve", in which he first recommended the establishment of the Health Protection Agency. In March 2002, national standards of cleanliness for the NHS were published by NHS Estates.

Paul Burstow: The hon. Gentleman is rightly listing a wide range of reports, guidance and other documents published by the Government since the last NAO report. Does he share my puzzlement and disappointment that throughout those few years they have not undertaken the necessary auditing to ascertain whether any of their guidance has been applied on the ground? We therefore have a sense of déjà vu, as the Government continue to re-announce proposals.

Andrew Lansley: The hon. Gentleman is right—the publication of those documents is not the same as achieving enforcement or implementation. I shall, however, complete my argument.
	In August 2002, the National Patient Safety Agency initiated the "clean your hands" hygiene project, to which I shall return in due course. The chief medical officer announced a number of additional requirements on surveillance in June 2003, and revised standards of cleanliness were published by NHS Estates in August 2003. In December 2003, "Winning Ways: working together to reduce healthcare associated infection in England" was published by the chief medical officer. In March 2004, NHS Estates published "The NHS Health Care Cleaning Manual".
	The Secretary of State published a document entitled "Towards cleaner hospitals and lower rates of infection" last Monday, although it was not listed by the NAO, because it was not told about it until it had sent its report to the printers. The Healthcare Commission, following the consultation on health care standards, is due to publish detailed criteria later this year. As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) said, one must consider why the issue has been revisited, but the NAO is to be congratulated on the thoroughness with which it has investigated those initiatives and reported to the House. It said that
	"the NHS still lacks sufficient information on the extent and cost of hospital acquired infection".
	The balanced score card that is used to assess the performance of NHS bodies refers to measures on cleanliness and infection control but they are no more than procedures. The question appears to be whether the requirements of "Winning Ways" have been met, not whether infection rates have been reduced, and the consequences for patient care. For example, the NAO report states that there has been
	"a focus on structures and processes, and a limited emphasis on evaluating changes in patient care".
	Let us consider some of the things that the Government said would be achieved, compared with what has actually happened. The NAO states:
	"Seventy-one per cent. of trusts are still operating with bed occupancy levels higher than the 82 per cent. target that the Department told the Committee"—
	the Public Accounts Committee—
	"it hoped to achieve by 2003–04."
	Fifty-six per cent. of trusts undertook risk assessment in respect of isolation facilities, but only a quarter had secured the required facilities. The NAO states that
	"it is impossible to quantify with any certainty if there have been any changes in NHS Trusts' infection rates."
	By that I assume that it means infection rates generally, as distinct from the very specific MRSA hospital-wide data that were published as a result of mandatory surveillance. The NAO went on to say:
	"There has been no progress in introducing a national post-discharge surveillance scheme as recommended by the Committee".
	There is clearly a substantial difference of opinion between the NAO and the Government on the question of the production of information and the way in which it is to be used. The NAO further states:
	"Feedback of specific local infection rates to clinical staff is vital".
	In its summary, which I shall quote at rather greater length as it includes several specific points, the NAO states:
	"The new mandatory national surveillance schemes do not currently enable clinicians to identify and reduce risks within their own specialty. In the absence of ownership and access to such data, hospital acquired infection is still perceived as a problem for the infection control team to deal with"—
	so those in the NHS with clinical responsibility do not regard such infection as their own problem—
	"and consequently many of the issues identified as barriers to effective infection control practice in our original report still apply. Considerable improvements could therefore still be made in: the coverage of education and training in infection control to all groups of staff, particularly doctors; compliance with guidance on issues such as hand hygiene, catheter care and aseptic technique; antibiotic prescribing in hospitals; hospital cleanliness; and consultation with the infection control team on wider trust activities such as new build projects."
	Given that the Secretary of State doubtless had access to the NAO's findings, one might have thought that his purpose in publishing the new document last Monday was to demonstrate that—even though the chief medical officer had published previous recommendations in detail—he was taking personal responsibility to ensure that what the NAO said had not been done would be done. However, that is not what happened. That new document, entitled "Towards cleaner hospitals and lower rates of infection", begins with patient environment action teams' assertions about cleanliness in hospitals. It states that these teams
	"have been assessing hospital cleanliness from a patient perspective since 2000 and have found consistent improvement".
	That is the position from which the Secretary of State begins, but how is that to be reconciled with the views of the Healthcare Commission? Two weeks ago, it said that
	"there is only weak agreement between cleanliness scores produced by official inspections of NHS Trusts and patient survey results on the cleanliness of the in-patient facilities of those Trusts".
	The National Audit Office also looked into the same issue and its report states that
	"only a third of infection control teams believe that standards have improved",
	where cleanliness is concerned,
	"in over half of the clinical areas in their trust over the last two years".
	There is no certainty, as the Secretary of State appears to believe that there is, about improvements in cleanliness.
	It is curious that the Secretary of State's document seems to be designed around the proposition that increased cleanliness necessarily leads to improved infection control. I do not think that any of us believes that poor cleanliness is consistent with good infection control—we view cleanliness and such control as complementary—but I do not think that anyone has any evidence to suggest that good or improved standards of cleanliness are a sufficient condition for good-quality infection control. If we examine the professional advice given to hospitals, it is perfectly clear that there is a requirement for a range of special measures associated with infection control that go beyond any patient's individual perception of what constitutes a clean hospital for this purpose.
	It is disappointing that the Secretary of State appears not to believe what the Department told him in the departmental report—effectively that common sense tells us that cleanliness and infection rates are related to one another, but that there is no hard evidence to show that that is the case. That is what the departmental report said only about three months ago. The Secretary of State, however, has clearly decided that, if he can convince the public that they will have clean hospitals, he can also convince them that they will also have, by extension, low-infection hospitals. Clean hospitals are very important and it is necessary that we secure them, but the Secretary of State has started to push cleanliness and infection control together as if they were entirely the same thing.
	Let us examine the weight that the Secretary of State places in his latest document on the empowerment of patients and, in particular, on the hand hygiene project launched by the National Patient Safety Agency. It is mentioned on page 38 of the National Audit Office report that the project began at the John Radcliffe hospital, Oxford and that a range of pilot sites developed from that while the "clean your hands" project was being evaluated. It is due for national roll-out this year.
	The John Radcliffe had 92 cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus between April 2001 and 2002; 114 from April 2002 to March 2003; and 127 from April 2003 to March 2004. Let us compare that record with some of the other pilot sites for the "clean your hands" project. At the Queens Medical Centre, such cases have increased from 58 to 77 over the last year; at the Royal Devon and Exeter from 36 to 50; and at St. George's Health Care NHS Trust from 75 to 93. No one would argue that there is no merit in the "clean your hands" campaign. Everything that it says is right and should be followed, but it is not sufficient. The Secretary of State appears to be treating it as if the process of trying to ensure cleanliness in hospitals is sufficient for infection control purposes. It is not.
	I was deeply disturbed by the way in which the Department, presumably for presentational reasons, set out just over a week ago to try to convince the public that the Secretary of State regarded this matter as a new issue and that he would take a hands-on approach and try to resolve it. He then publishes this document, but there are aspects of "Towards cleaner hospitals and Lower Rates of Infection" that make life even worse from the NHS point of view. Previously, it had the chief medical officer's document "Winning Ways", but things have been left out of the new document—and the NAO report referred to some of them, such as the importance of reduced use of catheters in intravenous drips and invasive procedures. That is in "Winning Ways" and is referred to by the NAO, but it does not get a mention in "Towards cleaner hospitals". The prudent use of antibiotics is also important and was mentioned in "Winning Ways". The importance of emphasising infection control in undergraduate and postgraduate curricula for doctors, nurses and other NHS professionals is in "Winning Ways" but is not referred to in "Towards cleaner hospitals".
	One might be forgiven for thinking that the Secretary of State, or others acting on his behalf, had cobbled together the document at a few days' notice—including a number of things that were due to happen anyway, such as the publication of standards, the roll-out of national surveillance and the National Patient Safety Agency's "clean your hands" campaign—and published it a couple of days before the National Audit Office report to try to offset the range, depth and seriousness of its criticism of the Government's failure to achieve reduced rates of infection control.

Paul Burstow: The hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that both versions of the original PDF version of the document—it was placed on the Government's website, and I also had a copy emailed to my office—had blank pages where there were meant to be new initiatives.

Andrew Lansley: That is very interesting. The hon. Gentleman may be able to speculate a bit more about that when he makes his contribution. My proposition may well be reinforced by that thought.
	I want to give others, albeit perhaps not that many, the opportunity to speak, so let me return to the failure of the 20 or so documents that the Government have published in one form or other. If it were possible to achieve improvements in performance in the NHS by publishing documents, that would have happened already, but it has not. Why not? It will not happen simply because somebody publishes a statement of standards. But it will happen—on this point, at least, the Secretary of State has belatedly accepted one of our propositions—if NHS institutions are increasingly required to respond to the demands of patient choice and are provided with the information necessary to enable patients to exercise that choice and incentivise their hospitals to respond.
	Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the information provided will be sufficient for that purpose. I am forcefully reminded by some of those who work in hospitals that the current hospital-wide MRSA data do not distinguish between infections brought into a hospital and those acquired in it. Now, that is not easy to do. As the best guidelines appear to suggest, there is sufficient screening in some clinical specialities to demonstrate the prevalence of infection in a hospital, but it would be a major task to achieve pre-admission screening across hospitals generally. But it can be achieved in some circumstances, and the National Audit Office report notes the successful impact of pre-admission screening at University College hospital in London.
	We agree with the Government that it is important quickly to reach the point—indeed, it should be done more quickly than they propose—at which data are introduced in a form that allows the relative importance of cleanliness and infection control to be demonstrated to patients so that it can form part of their decisions. However, the Government do not propose the kind of independent system that we need to back that up. At every point, one continues to see, for example, the imposition of Government targets, and they will, of course, have a new target for MRSA. However, as we learned from the National Audit Office report,
	"Many of the survey responses from trust senior management identified difficulties reconciling the management of hospital acquired infection with the fulfilment of government performance targets."
	Indeed, 50 per cent. of those responses singled out compliance with waiting times and, I suspect, bed occupancy rates and the like.
	It should be for patients and hospitals to determine the balance between bed occupancy rates, waiting times and patient choice. Where patients regard a hospital as good, efficient, clean and with minimal infection rates, they will be able to make a trade-off between that and the waiting times with which they may have to comply to enter that hospital rather than another one. We shall arrive at that situation only when there is independence in the NHS system.
	Over the past few days, we have been driven to conclude that, through his latest intervention, the Secretary of State has only further demonstrated the Government's desire to interfere with the NHS for presentational reasons and to confuse the already confused picture concerning guidance. We are already to have a new set of criteria from the Commission for Health Improvement, in response to the new health care standards.
	The Secretary of State's document does not appear to build appropriately on "Winning Ways", published by the chief medical officer. Under the Bill, the Government propose to set up a body geared to the control of the spread of infectious diseases, yet the Public Health Laboratory Service, in the past, and the Health Protection Agency special health authority more recently have demonstrated their competence to understand the control of infectious diseases in a health care context, and have published guidance for that purpose. After reading the working party guidelines, I was far more informed about how a hospital would, in reality, manage infection control than by reading anything that the Department of Health has produced recently.
	If there are to be such standards for the NHS to respond to, everything points to their being produced by a more independent body, with the necessary competence. Such a body would be more likely to command support across the NHS in publishing standards that were not only practical but also evidence-based and peer-reviewed. They should form the basis for the NHS response.
	The Health Protection Agency needs a legal basis on which to publish a statement of standards relating to its responsibilities for infection—something that is part of the legal structure that NHS bodies must observe. New clause 1 would give the agency that responsibility and take it away from Ministers who have so transparently failed to tackle infection control in the NHS and have recently made the situation worse.
	I commend the new clause to the House.

Paul Burstow: I support the new clause; it is useful and would improve the Bill. It also enables us to explore a little further some of the issues discussed outside this place last week, in conversations on the GMTV sofa and following the publication of the NAO report.
	In my intervention on the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley), I referred to "Towards cleaner hospitals", because it struck me as symbolic of the true content of the document that neither of the two copies sent electronically to my office could be opened, so one could not see what was new about the Government's announcements. I fear that as we examine that document in greater detail we shall find that there is almost nothing—if anything—new and that it was merely a ragbag of recycled announcements brought together to provide some cover in a particularly embarrassing week, before the publication of the NAO report last Thursday and, subsequently, of the latest MRSA figures. The figures were brought forward so that they could be published on the same day as the NAO report, thereby conflating them with it and obscuring their importance. I am, therefore, sceptical about what the Government proposed on Monday.
	My scepticism was reinforced by the fact that I understand that the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire quite properly sought to secure an urgent question to enable the matter to be discussed, but that his request was declined for various reasons. Indeed, no written statement was made to the House. My understanding of the conventions—I may be wrong; if I am, I am sure I will be put right—is that new policy and substantive changes in Government policy must be announced first in the House, not on the sofa of GMTV. Therefore, one can only conclude charitably that the Secretary of State for Health has not announced a new policy to deal with the threat of hospital-acquired infections. The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire gently discussed the reasoning and rationale behind the publication of the document on Monday, but its publication was very much about managing the fallout from a very negative report that examined the Government's progress since 2000, when the NAO first considered the issue in detail and made its comprehensive set of recommendations to the Government.
	I want to explore one or two of the issues in the report that fit very nicely with the standard-setting responsibilities that the new clause would give the Health Protection Agency. It is right that a body with a deal of independence from Government has the responsibility of becoming almost the critical friend when it comes to such issues. Only a couple of weeks ago the Health Protection Agency set out the scientific basis for some of its concerns and what it saw as the links between bed occupancy rates and hospital-acquired infections—something that is reiterated and borne out in the NAO report.
	The new clause picks up on an issue that I raised in Committee during debates on amendment No. 5, which I tabled and which said:
	"The Agency shall draw up and consult on a protocol with the Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection to collect and publish information concerning the performance of NHS organisations in controlling healthcare-acquired infections."
	The Minister said that that was unnecessary because it would be covered in the star ratings. The criticism in the NAO report, which relates to the Government's attempted rebuttal of my amendment in Committee, seems to be that the star-rating system is much more focused on process than on outcomes. In other words, people can tick all the boxes, adhere to all the guidelines and have wonderful policies lining the shelves of the infection control team's office, but whether or not people still pick up infections and get sicker in hospital would not count in awarding the star ratings. Surely that must be the litmus test of whether the NHS is getting to grips with the problem of hospital-acquired infections, irrespective of whether those involved have ticked all the boxes and have all the manuals in place.
	The report "Winning Ways", which was published last December, shows that, according to currently available data, the Government have achieved only a small improvement. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain that and say what will be done, in concrete terms, to change it. That small improvement was mentioned not only in "Winning Ways", the chief medical officer's report, but in the Commission for Health Improvement's findings. In its annual report, published in May 2003, the commission concluded that it
	"had seen few examples of notable practice in infection control; good policies did not always exist and, even when they did, they were often not followed sufficiently well to make them effective."
	The new clause proposes a mechanism to ensure that the standards are grounded in good practice across the NHS.
	The NAO refers at paragraph 2.21 of its report to the fact that it undertook a survey in February to evaluate the implementation of a number of aspects of the Government's policies. It found that trusts expressed concern that, for example, the only people who could undertake the role of the new director of infection control in hospitals were the existing infection control doctors. There still seems to be a great deal of uncertainty and lack of clarity on the ground about the precise remit of infection control directors. I hope that the Minister will be able to shed some light on that.
	One of the most worrying findings was contained in paragraph 2.25 of the report. Almost one in four NHS trusts—24 per cent.—said that they had cut their budgets for infection control since the NAO last looked at the issue in 2000. That is an extraordinary finding, and I hope that the Government were sufficiently disturbed by it to make their own inquiries through the strategic health authorities and so forth.
	Another figure struck me when I read the NAO report, and its significance was reinforced by representations that I received last week from the Infection Control Nurses Association, which feels rather shut out from the Government's latest set of announcements about how to take forward the fight against infection. Paragraph 2.32 of the NAO report states:
	"Twelve per cent. of infection control teams reported that their recommendation to close a ward or hospital to admissions for the purpose of outbreak control was refused or discouraged by their chief executive. Two per cent. of teams also reported that their strategic health authority had refused or discouraged their recommendation."
	One of the points that the Infection Control Nurses Association strongly put to me was that it feels quite insulted by the idea that the best way to solve the crisis of infection within the NHS is to fly in experts from abroad when there are experts in our country who are not being adequately used, sufficiently consulted or given the authority on the ground to do the job. It is strange that, four years on, the NAO is yet again having to recommend in its report that it should be mandatory that infection control teams are consulted on the letting of a range of contracts from cleaning and laundry to catering. It is disturbing that, when it comes to their judgment being applied with regard to the risk of infection and outbreaks, those teams are being turned down, presumably because of concerns about hitting targets.
	The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire mentioned the NAO report's remarks on chief executives. It said:
	"Almost 50 per cent. reported that waiting times for inpatient treatment had caused conflicts, one third that trolley waits in accident and emergency departments caused conflicts, and one in ten experienced difficulties in reconciling the management and control of hospital acquired infection with other targets."
	The truth is that the Government's obsession with targets—the targets and tick boxes that they have so many of nationally—gets in the way of, and conflicts with, the objectives of trying to contain and prevent infection. That is not my view; it is the view of NHS managers and staff articulated through the NAO report. It is no wonder that on Monday the Government were keen to do all that they could to cast a shadow over that report so as to obscure its findings.
	The report's findings on bed occupancy are also worth commenting on, and I hope that the Minister will address them. When the Government responded to the NAO report and the Public Accounts Committee on this matter in 2000–01, they basically said, "Don't worry; it will be sorted out because we will make a massive investment in the NHS so there will be more beds, more staff and bed occupancy rates will come down." However, we now know from paragraph 2.34 of the NAO report that the reverse has happened: bed occupancy rates have gone up. In answer to a parliamentary question that I asked, I learned that, according to the Department of Health's hospital activity statistics, whereas bed occupancy rates were 80.8 per cent. in 1996–97, they rose to 86.5 per cent. by 2002–03. That is a significant increase, well above that which the Health Protection Agency seems to think would be appropriate and certainly well above that which the NAO recommends in response to the representations that it has received.
	On the Bill's Second Reading, I raised some questions about surveillance, which go to the heart of how to ensure that standards really are bedding down and having traction on the problem. I asked the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), to outline the timetable for the roll-out of the surveillance of other types of hospital-acquired infection, because I understand that MRSA accounts for only 44 per cent. of such infections. Subsequent to that, the NAO report makes interesting reading, because paragraph 3.5 states:
	"Instead of developing mandatory specialty specific surveillance of bloodstream, surgical site and urinary tract infections whose information would be fed back to clinicians to improve practice, the Department focussed on trust wide surveillance of MRSA bacteraemias and other specific organisms, together with plans for mandatory reporting of orthopaedic surgical site infection."
	Although the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire is right to say that it would be an engine for choice if people had information and a clearer idea of the worst hospitals for infection, surely the key is to provide clinicians with information in such a way that they may identify how mistakes are made so that practice can be changed. The current system does not do that. Indeed, the scariest statistic from the report is that 18 per cent. of infection control teams fail to carry out any surveillance activities other than the mandatory MRSA bacterium surveillance. No other activity is going on in many of our trusts to find out which parts of hospitals are experiencing the worst rates of infection so that real feedback may be given to clinicians to enable them to change practice and save lives.
	I hope that the Minister will tell us how the Government, at long last, are ensuring that the succession of initiatives and announcements—recycled, re-announced and so on—are beginning to have a real effect on the NHS. Will she also tell us when the Infection Control Nurses Association will have the opportunity to meet Ministers to discuss its worries about Monday's announcement and the NAO's findings, and talk about how it may help the Government to crack the problem of infection?

John Redwood: I rise to support the new clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) because it is desperately important to tackle the problem as vigorously and objectively as possible. As my hon. Friend pointed out, we have had seven years of initiatives—well-intentioned ones, I am sure—from Secretaries of State and Ministers in the Department of Health that have failed to deliver. Seven years on, and many circulars and directives later, we still have unacceptably high rates of infection in our hospitals. As we have heard, infection rates have risen dangerously in some hospitals over recent years, and there have often been no positive responses to the exhortations from the centre.
	I support new clause 1 because, like many right hon. and hon. Members, I have constituents who have paid a high price for the failure of a local hospital to control infection. I recently received a letter from one of my constituents who went to the local district general hospital for an operation at the end of last year. My constituent was told that a full recovery from the wounds that the surgeon had to inflict was very likely and that their quality of life would be much improved after the operation had been successfully carried out. Seven months later, my constituent is in more pain than that experienced before going to hospital to get the original problem sorted out. My constituent contracted a dangerous infection in the wound as a result of the hospital operation, and had to be readmitted twice so that the wound could be reopened and cleansed under hospital conditions. On each occasion, the process was not only painful but failed to overcome the obstinate infection that had got into the wound, presumably when the original operation was performed. My constituent had to spend a couple of months on antibiotics, but that has still not solved the problem.
	In a macabre way, I suppose that my constituent was lucky because they did not die—we know that all too many hundreds of people die as a result of severe infections contracted in hospital by one means or another. This Government are all too ready to tackle the problems of death and serious injury on the roads, when perhaps as many as one in eight of all accidents are caused partly or wholly by speed. The Government are always dramatic in their moves to try to control speed on the roads, yet far more people die in our hospitals as a result of mistakes and infections contracted in our hospitals, where there is not the same sense of urgency.
	One of my objections to the way the Government legislate and respond is that if the problem lies in the private sector, the answer is regulation and legislation, often with criminal charges, penalties and prosecutions attached, but if the problem is in the public sector, the answer is exhortation and another quango, and not the same sense of urgency or seriousness. I see the Minister objecting, but she must see the justice of what I am saying. My constituents are very angry that there is still so much infection and danger in our hospitals.
	Of course, elective surgery has always been a risky process. It entails first wounding the patient in order to bring about a much better life for them in due course. It is worth taking the risk of having the skin and muscle cut through if the surgeon is skilful, as they often are, and if, as a result of surgery, a part of the body that will not work properly can be removed or a part of the body can be repaired. Many fine things are done by many brilliant surgeons around the country and many of us are grateful for their work. We hope we will not need it, but we will be very grateful should we need it ourselves.
	If the risk of a serious infection while the process is under way becomes too great, the entire question of what we are doing in hospitals is opened up with an entirely different balance of risk. If someone is told that they will probably have a substantial improvement in their quality of life if a non-threatening condition is tackled, they will say, "Well, I don't mind the pain for a few weeks from a flesh wound that will repair." But if they are told, "By the way, there is a danger that while you are going through that process, you might contract something that causes you permanent pain or that was even life-threatening in itself," that will lead people to ask, "Is that really what I want? Is this what we should be doing?"
	I agree with the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) that one of the issues that need to be tackled in the new clause and in the Bill is bed utilisation. Bed utilisation in the Royal Berkshire hospital in Reading, my local district general, is undoubtedly too high. I am someone who likes to use public money wisely and usually I favour great productivity, but there are limits. There must be enough time between one user of a hospital bed and another to ensure thorough cleaning and preparation of the bed and the ward or the room, so that the new patient is not likely to be at risk as a result of over-utilisation of the bed and perhaps some rushing of the procedures that should be undertaken to prepare the bed and the area for the new patient.
	I quite understand how managers and senior doctors in hospitals, faced day after day with the terrible problem that there are not enough beds and there are people in the corridors, people queuing and people needing treatment, say, "Let's just clear the bed and get on with it," but we must take some of the strain off them by offering enough beds in our hospitals and enough facilities so that we can have a more civilised regime, so that there are not queues at the doors and so that there is adequate time between patients to make sure that all the right procedures are followed.
	As my hon. Friend said, the Secretary of State intruded into the debate in recent days, without the courtesy of a statement to the House of Commons, to say that he would be hands-on and would solve the problem of cleanliness in hospitals. I do not think that that will work. I do not believe it is possible for any man or woman, however talented and energetic, to be personally responsible for the cleanliness of every hospital and every surgery throughout the country, or simply by the magnetism or lack of magnetism of their personality to ensure that every one of the million-plus staff follows all the right procedures all the time to guarantee that conditions are clean enough.
	It may be, as my hon. Friend said, that the Secretary of State was going to be hands-on by way of washing his hands of responsibility. We certainly hope he will wash his hands thoroughly before taking responsibility and before intruding in this sensitive area. He seems to think that hand-washing is one of the most important routines that has not been properly observed in recent years.
	I will support my hon. Friend, as the new clause is a valiant attempt to bring about improvement and change in an important area. I hope the Minister understands how desperately important that is to many constituents contemplating operations or who have recently had operations, who want the reassurance from someone within such a mighty organisation that everything is being done to get on top of the problem and, more importantly, that infection rates are falling rapidly and not continuing to rise, as they have done in many places in recent years. Patients and constituents expect no less. They expect clean hospitals but, above all, they expect to have hospitals in which infection control is taken seriously and successfully implemented. It cannot be beyond the NHS, with all the money now at its disposal and all the people whom the Government say they are now recruiting, to control infection better. We owe it to our constituents, and I hope that the Minister will accept my hon. Friend's new clause in that spirit.

Melanie Johnson: I shall try to address all the issues that have been raised, but I shall try also to relate my comments to the new clause, as Opposition Members have made little effort to do so.
	The hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley) raised the question of standards and the work that is going on. I draw his attention to the fact that his proposals would lead to the HPA having power to set standards, but no responsibility to resource them. The reason why we do not support such proposals is that they would divorce responsibilities for standards from those for money. Under the new clause that he advocates, the agency would be able to set standards, but would have no responsibility to meet the bill. I do not think that it would take him much effort to work out why any Government of any political persuasion would think that that might not be a desirable situation. That is one of our three basic objections to his proposals.
	On the question of standards generally and what we are doing about them, we have already issued standards, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman was confident that we had issued so many and that we had regularly issued guidance. I was not sure whether he made those points as a criticism. They seemed to me to be a compliment, and I chose to take them as such. However, the issue of health care-acquired infections is a question not of dealing with only one component, but of bringing together a set of components. Indeed, I thought that that was the point that a number of hon. Members made in their contributions. That is why we need a multi-pronged approach that brings together the sort of issues to do with standards that need to be brought together, as well as the guidance that goes with them.
	Of course, we are following up the publications that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. We do so through National Care Standards Commission work, through PEAT—patient environment action team—inspections and through the Commission for Health Improvement and its successor body, the new CHI. We follow up all those things.

Andrew Lansley: We are supposed to call it the Healthcare Commission.

Melanie Johnson: We are indeed. To help the hon. Gentleman, I shall be absolutely correct in these matters.
	We do not believe that there is any room for complacency. The nub of the issue has been mentioned by a number of hon. Members, although they have not been as up-front as they should be about acknowledging it. The crux of the issue is implementing the standards. The overall guidance includes standards, and work continues to make sure that the standards are right. We must ensure that we get them right, which requires the compliance of all NHS staff. The guidance covers everything from estates to consultants and back again, and people must get standards right throughout the NHS.

Paul Burstow: Will the Minister give way?

Melanie Johnson: Yes, provided that the hon. Gentleman does not raise a point that he made earlier.

Paul Burstow: Heaven forbid. I agree with the Minister about the importance of compliance. In a written answer some months ago, she indicated that the Government were not minded to undertake and publish an audit of compliance with the published guidance to date. Do the Government still take the view that an audit to see whether compliance is being achieved on the ground is not necessary?

Melanie Johnson: We are making sure that the outcomes improve.
	The other day, the Secretary of State for Health made an announcement, and I am sorry the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire was not included on the sofa at the television station—he obviously took it badly, and I regret that he did not get that opportunity. Had the Secretary of State's announcement raised any problems in relation to the powers and prerogatives of this House, I am sure that they would have been raised and that the House would have opined accordingly.
	The proposals cover six main areas, many of which are based on the notion that we must improve compliance and implementation. Measures such as being open, displaying information about infection levels, involving patients, making sure that matrons control cleaners, including housekeeping buttons on patients' bedside phones and cleanliness inspections, the   results of which will be made public, are all important in improving compliance and dealing with health care-acquired infection and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus in particular.

John Redwood: Given that the most serious threat occurs in situations such as the one that I described, where the infection took place in the operating theatre when the wound was open, how will those procedures help cleanliness in operating theatres, where nurses and surgeons work, or in the preparation of patients before operations?

Melanie Johnson: It depends. All of us sympathise with any patient who experiences the same difficulties as the right hon. Gentleman's constituent. The risk depends on the procedures and the type of surgery. If one undergoes surgery to the stomach or gut, the risk of acquiring an infection is substantially greater than that in orthopaedics, where special provisions are made tightly to control infection and where those parts of the body are not directly involved. Different parts of hospitals clearly face different issues, and it would be wrong to make a blanket statement.
	A second area of difficulty is contained in new clause 1. We have consulted on key standards across a wide range of areas and are currently collating our response. Those standards will be linked to decisions on priorities and resources. That brings me back to what I said earlier about the importance of linking the two.
	As a service provider, the agency needs to consider how it can work with the primary care trusts and other NHS bodies as equal partners. That relationship would be undermined if, as envisaged in new clause 1, the agency had the unilateral power to specify standards for PCTs. Awkward tensions could arise between the agency and NHS bodies that it works alongside to support. The new clause would not bring about a desirable change.
	The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) asked about innovation in relation to infection control. On the whole, there are no amazing discoveries to be made about the subject—it is not rocket science. He criticised what we are doing in respect of cleaner hospitals for its lack of innovation. On that, and on star ratings, we are trying to encourage compliance in terms of audit outcomes. The hon. Gentleman suggested, as did the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire, that the star ratings are not important. That is an odd complaint, because they relate to whether certain processes are carried out. The hon. Gentleman nodded when I mentioned compliance; I think that he recognises that that is the core issue on which we need to achieve improvement. That is why much of the Secretary of State's recent announcement featured compliance and related issues.

Paul Burstow: The Minister talks about auditing outcomes in terms of compliance. Will she undertake to start to collect and publish the outcomes of those audits so that the public, clinicians and others can see whether compliance is really being delivered?

Melanie Johnson: We are certainly saying, in relation to published information—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman shrugs, but the audits carried out at a local level by patient forums, in line with guidance set by infection control experts, will be published quarterly. Such information is the best indicator of whether we are making the improvements that we should.
	As regards the director of infection prevention and control, of course people other than doctors can carry out that role. Some post holders may be senior nurses, who are extremely well qualified for the job. Indeed, the Bristol trust's director of infection prevention and control chairs the Infection Control Nurses Association.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman on staffing and expertise in the health service. The press notice that accompanied the Secretary of State's announcement made it clear that we are consulting our own experts as well as experts from abroad. Many individuals are leading substantial work to improve infection control in their trusts. Recent publicity in the media in the past couple of weeks has covered that. It is vital to use our expertise, which we greatly value, as well as considering what we can learn from abroad if we are to get the right control mechanisms to achieve the outcomes that we want on health care-acquired infections generally and MRSA in particular.
	I want to consider bed occupancy because we need to strike a balance between bed management and the risks of health care-acquired infection. "Winning Ways" covers that and the matter is being progressed. Although we need to ensure that the balance is right, we must also make sure that we use beds efficiently. I am glad that the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) continues to support efficiency because we should not ignore it. It is clear that we need to avoid risk to patients by ensuring that one patient is kept separate from another so that infection is not passed between them.
	Such passing on of infection may happen because the patients are in the same part of the hospital or because a health care professional passes from one patient to another. We need to ensure that, apart from the environment, the processes that involve individual members of staff who deal with patients are correct. For example, it is important that members of staff wash their hands. That might seem a small thing but we all acknowledge its importance. That is why so much emphasis was placed on it today and in the Secretary of State's earlier announcement.
	The new clause would not be helpful for all the reasons that I have outlined. I therefore hope that hon. Members will not support it. The Health Protection Agency can, should and will make a big contribution to raising health protection standards. We want the agency to be an authoritative source of advice, information and support on infectious disease and other health protection matters. The Bill provides for that.
	However, the Secretary of State remains responsible for policy on health and health protection. That applies to the National Assembly for Wales for matters that are devolved to Wales. The policy therefore needs to take account not only of health protection issues about which the agency is well placed to advise but other matters, including judgments about affordability and competing priorities for the NHS and more generally.
	The current agency is an authoritative source of advice, which contributes to the policies of both the Secretary of State and the National Assembly. As I said earlier, a range of other bodies, including the Food Standards Agency, which I did not mention, the Healthcare Commission and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence also want to have an input into the advice and the work. They are well placed to help to put many policies into practice, for example, through their support for health protection services locally. I hope that I have answered the points and I commend the Bill as it stands.

Andrew Lansley: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) for their contributions. I want to correct one point that I made earlier. When I referred to the National Audit Office, I used an example from University college hospital London. However, that was to do with post-discharge surveillance. The example of screening patients for elective surgery was from the Princess Royal hospital in Brighton.
	The Under-Secretary said that she had three objections to the new clause, but we heard only two. Neither were the ones that I expected and I believe that they are damaging suggestions. She said that standard setting would be divorced from resources. That is rather curious, because when we look at the consultation document on the setting of standards, we see that the detailed criteria will be set out by the new Healthcare Commission. The document states:
	"This relationship between the proposed standards and the independent Commission represents a significant step change between the approach to quality improvement in the future and the approach adopted to date".
	The Government are proposing that the criteria for standards should be published by an independent body that is not itself responsible for the provision of resources, so argument No. 1 from the Minister simply falls to one side.
	Argument No. 2 was that decisions on standards had to be linked to priorities. We know, however, that although the National Audit Office cannot be too specific, it has stated that the evidence is that effective infection control is a cost-effective measure that is likely to reduce the call on resources. No one is attempting to dispute that. However, the Minister appears to be arguing that the Health Protection Agency, the body that the Government are establishing to be responsible for the control of infectious diseases and for the prevention of the spread of those diseases, will not be able to set standards, even though it has that responsibility, because it will not be able to take account of affordability and competing priorities. The core standards that the chief medical officer published included, under the heading "Safety", the requirement that the
	"risk of infection to patients, staff and visitors is minimised".
	There is nothing in the standards document to suggest that the achievement of a minimised infection environment for patients—which ought to be an absolute priority—should to be compromised by reference to affordability or competing priorities. It is clearly cost effective when the NHS achieves it, and the Health Protection Agency—as distinct from the Healthcare Commission—will have the expertise to specify the criteria involved, and it ought to be the responsibility of the agency to do so.
	The Minister has offered no argument against the new clause and, on that basis, I invite my colleagues to support it.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
	The House divided: Ayes 163, Noes 297.

Question accordingly negatived.

Clause 5
	 — 
	Co-operation

Paul Burstow: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 5, line 6, at end insert—
	'(2A)   To facilitate co-operation the Agency shall consult with other bodies and publish protocols for co-operation.'.
	I want to speak briefly to this amendment, which concerns an issue that we explored in some detail in Committee. The amendment relates to clause 5, which deals with co-operation between organisations, including the Health Protection Agency, not only to enable that agency to deliver its functions but, in other circumstances, to enable other bodies to discharge some of theirs. There is a mutual duty to co-operate.
	One of my concerns, which arose partly from a speech made on Second Reading by the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire (David Taylor), and also from other hon. Members' speeches, is that the clause's drafting leaves open quite a few questions about how the duty to co-operate will be realised in practice. I tabled an amendment in Committee that was intended to include in the Bill permission for the HPA to draw up and consult on protocols on discharging the duty of co-operation with other agencies. In exchanges in Committee, the Minister resisted the amendment, because, in her words, it was both burdensome and prescriptive. It was far from my intention to create a burdensome and prescriptive measure. I sought assurance after the Committee consideration of the amendment about whether the wording could be construed as prescriptive or whether it could be more appropriately construed as permissive. I am advised—and have therefore re-tabled it for consideration today—that its character is more permissive than prescriptive.
	The intention of the amendment is simply to introduce a mechanism into the Bill that provides for the Health Protection Agency, when it must work with other bodies in order to discharge its functions, to consult on and draw up protocols. It is permissive, because reference is made to the body having the power to do that. I commend the amendment to the scrutiny of hon. Members.
	In Committee, we had a useful contribution from the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer), who raised a number of concerns about the need for such protocols, not least to deal with arrangements between the Health Protection Agency and other bodies, such as local authorities, in the event of radiological, biological or chemical attacks. On Second Reading, the hon. Member for North-West Leicestershire expressed concern about the lack of co-operation at times between the Environment Agency and other bodies, particularly the Health Protection Agency.
	In Committee, I raised the issue of who took responsibility, and where the buck stopped, in the handling of outbreaks—particularly outbreaks that might involve zoonosis, or potential transfer from animals to humans. The Minister asserted several times that a protocol specifying who might, in certain circumstances, make the decision would be inappropriate and that it would be appropriate for that to be dealt with solely through co-operation. That, surely, is a recipe for chaos. Protocols can clarify such questions as whether a Minister or an agency will make the decision.
	The amendment is intended to improve the Bill and to provide, on a permissive rather than a prescriptive basis, a mechanism enabling the HPA, with partner agencies, to draw up suitable fit-for-purpose protocols at the least possible cost to the taxpayer and with the greatest possible benefit in terms of effective service with co-operation being the key.

Andrew Murrison: I support this sensible amendment. My hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) went to some trouble in Committee to outline his views on co-operation, especially in emergencies. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) talked about that as well.
	The amendment sets out, in a reasonably prescriptive way, the arrangements that might exist between the HPA and other bodies. As the Minister will recall, I pointed out in Committee that those bodies were not specified in the Bill. She gave me a reasonable explanation, but it is a burden for the bodies that are expected to co-operate with the agency not to know who they are. The Minister and I discussed that in some detail.
	The amendment will probably help by describing the precise nature of the co-operation. That will be particularly beneficial when there is not enough time to make detailed decisions on any form of working arrangement. The work is being done before the emergency arises. I am sure that, if my hon. Friend the Member for Newark were present, he would strongly support a measure that would deal with some of the anxieties he expressed at length in Committee.

Melanie Johnson: As I explained in Committee, our 2002 consultation paper noted that the agency would need to co-operate with other bodies, and the responses supported that proposal. That is why clause 4 provides for the agency and other bodies exercising related functions to have a mutual duty of co-operation.
	Although the thinking behind the amendment is clear, it is not clear how it would work in practice. Let me explain a few things. First, the principle of imposing a duty of co-operation is not new. The HPA already has a duty to co-operate with other NHS bodies and local authorities. Section 26 of the Health Act 1999 imposes a duty on NHS bodies to co-operate with each other and section 22 of the National Health Service Act 1977 creates a duty of co-operation between NHS bodies and local authorities. Secondly, "co-operation" means just that: it implies not wholesale rewriting of each other's priorities, but sensible working together to ensure that the public are served to best effect. Thirdly, it is normal and sensible to leave the details of how co-operation will work in practice to the parties concerned rather than prescribing them in primary legislation. Different levels and forms of working together will be appropriate in different circumstances and with different bodies.
	I do not believe that anything will be gained by our writing into the Bill a requirement for the agency to publish protocols on co-operation with other bodies. Such a requirement has not been found necessary in other contexts. There is, for example, no requirement in legislation for NHS bodies and local authorities to produce protocols explaining how they will co-operate. In practice, the agency and some of the bodies with which it will co-operate might well want to produce protocols or other forms of agreement if they were regularly to involve each other in certain procedures, but there might be cases in which protocols would not be appropriate and would not be required. Judgments about operational matters are best left to the agency and its partners rather than being prescribed in legislation.
	It is difficult to assess whether the amendment is meaningful. I realise that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) has tried to resist the temptation to prescribe in detail what co-operation should mean, but my first objection is that he is doing that. He has suggested a general requirement to produce and publish protocols on co-operation. He explained in Committee that the requirement
	"is not intended to be prescriptive. It is intended to indicate a mechanism, a natural part of which I would expect the HPA to be undertaking."—[Official Report, Standing Committee F, 29 June 2004; c. 25.]
	The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. His amendment is prescriptive: it dictates to the agency and its partners that they should have protocols. If, as he has argued, that is a natural part of what we would expect the HPA to undertake, there is no need to dictate to it and its partners that they should have such protocols.
	If the amendment is not too prescriptive—although it certainly could be—it can equally be interpreted as being meaningless. In some circumstances in which it is reasonable in the circumstances, the agency could discharge a proposed duty simply by producing a protocol saying that there shall be co-operation in appropriate circumstances and by appropriate means. Nothing would be gained by such a meaningless requirement. As I said in Committee, a legal requirement to publish protocols would also ignore the fact that there could be good reasons against publication in some circumstances. For example, there might well be a need for the agency to co-operate with the security services, but it would not necessarily be desirable for the details of that co-operation to be put in the public domain.
	The amendment is generally far too prescriptive. It undermines the hon. Gentleman's recognition in Committee that we do not wish to prescribe such matters. The hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) described it as "reasonably prescriptive". I am not sure what that means, but I think that it is far too prescriptive, because it writes into primary legislation a requirement to publish protocols in co-operation with other bodies, which we do not need to do. The arrangements are already in place. I have already specified the precedents that show that this is unnecessary. We should give the bodies a certain amount of flexibility, because in certain circumstances prescription would be inappropriate.
	I hope that the House will reject the amendment, because I do not think it would necessarily have the effect that the hon. Gentleman wants. Good co-operation and good work on protocols will continue. That, not prescription in primary legislation, is what will deliver.

Paul Burstow: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Westbury (Dr. Murrison) for his support and to the Minister for her response. The debate turns on what is read into the word "shall", and whether in this context it becomes "must". That, at least, is what the Minister seems to be trying to discuss with us.
	I do not agree with the construction that the Minister places on those words. The amendment is about trying to find a fail-safe mechanism to be used when co-operation is not being secured in other ways—a mechanism that need not be used in all circumstances, but that shall be available. I am still not convinced that clause 5 is sufficiently clear to ensure that all the bodies that could play a part in helping the HPA to discharge its functions are brought into its ambit. My amendment seeks to achieve that as simply as possible. I was not persuaded by the Minister's argument to withdraw it, and I shall press it to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made—
	The House divided: Ayes 164, Noes 287.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Order for Third Reading read.

Melanie Johnson: I beg to move, That the Bill be read a Third time.
	I thank hon. Members for their contribution to the scrutiny of this Bill. The debate has been wide-ranging and has given Opposition Members the opportunity, for which I am sure that they are profoundly grateful, to debate a whole range of different aspects of the Government's public health policy. That the Health Protection Agency is relevant to so many public health issues is testament to how important its work already is and will continue to be.
	We have given the Bill a thorough examination during its legislative passage. Before today, the House had already spent some nine hours considering it: more than three and a half hours on Second Reading, and nearly five and a half in Committee. I appreciate that that might not seem like a long time compared with many other Bills, including most of the Bills that I have been involved with in my parliamentary career. None the less, generous time has been allowed for its consideration, given the degree of support from all parts of the House—I am happy to say—for its general principles and overall aims. Of course, it had already been considered for nine and a half hours in another place.
	The Government have been responsive to the points raised in the House and in the other place and have amended the Bill accordingly. A total of 16 Government amendments, made in response to points raised in the Lords, were accepted. Some 33 other amendments were accepted in the other place, but the Bill was well prepared and those amendments did not raise new issues or set out new policies that were unforeseen at the time of its introduction.

Andrew Murrison: One issue, the review of arm's-length bodies, was severely glossed over. As I recall, the Minister repeatedly assured the Committee that the Bill would not be affected by that review. The Minister was either incorrect or she pre-judged the review's outcome; which was it?

Melanie Johnson: I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman draws that conclusion. I was neither of the things that he says, and I stick exactly to what I have said on the record previously about the relationship between the Bill, the HPA and the arm's-length body review.
	Six of the amendments accepted in another place affected the schedules, but they are concerned merely with tidying up.
	As a result of this work, we have got right the statutory basis for the HPA. It is doing an important job and it will need to continue to do so, in conjunction with the National Radiological Protection Board; indeed, I have set out the advantages of bringing those bodies together. I am sure that Members will wish the HPA well in its future work. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.

Andrew Murrison: Generally speaking, we welcome the Bill. Our proceedings in Committee were conciliatory throughout and I hope that the Minister appreciated the constructive comments made by all members of the Committee.
	I am a concerned about the review of arm's-length bodies. Clearly, that must affect the HPA; it would be extraordinary if it did not. Members raised education with the Minister on several occasions in Committee, encouraging her to include a reference to it in the Bill. Of course, education is a salient part of the terms of reference of several of the bodies that are likely to be abolished as a result of this review, so it is surely desirable that the Bill reflect that fact, at least in part. I appreciate that its terms of reference are broad; indeed, I strongly suspect that they were drawn up that way to allow for incorporation of the functions of other bodies, if and when they are abolished.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) made some important points on civil contingencies on Second Reading. I discerned in Committee that the Minister has perhaps not thought through that issue as well as she has other aspects of the Bill. She will of course have observed Operation Horizon, a very important exercise that took place in Birmingham over the weekend. I wonder what part the HPA played in it, and how that role might have differed if the HPA had been a non-departmental public body. It would be useful if the Minister commented on that issue or wrote to me about it, because it cuts to the heart of the transferring of this strategic health authority to the status of a non-departmental public body.
	We face a whole raft of public health challenges, and I have to say that I am more concerned about public health outcomes than structures. That said, I of course wish the new body well—
	It being two hours after the commencement of proceedings, Mr. Deputy Speaker put the Questions necessary to bring proceedings on the Bill to a conclusion, pursuant to Order [this day].
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

Council Tax

Nick Raynsford: I beg to move,
	That the draft Council Tax Limitation (England) (Maximum Amounts) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that this debate lasts for only one and a half hours, so it would be very helpful if Back Benchers and Front Benchers were mindful of the need to share the time with others.

Nick Raynsford: I will try to confine my remarks to the minimum necessary to set out our decision in order to allow—as you suggested, Mr. Deputy Speaker—a good opportunity for other hon. Members to contribute to the debate.
	The order that I am presenting for the approval of the House today will be made under section 52F(4) of the Local Government Finance Act 1992, which was inserted by the Local Government Act 1999. It sets out the amounts that the 2004–05 budget requirements of the authorities named in the order must not exceed—namely, caps on their budget requirements. In my view, the provisions of the order are compatible with the convention rights.
	Six authorities are named in the order: Torbay borough council, Nottingham city council, Herefordshire district council, the Fenland and Shepway district councils and the Hereford and Worcester fire authority.

Anthony Steen: Bearing in mind the facts that the Lib Dems have spent 11 out of the past 14 years running Torbay and that it has been rated as a poor performance council, why are the Government making it worse by capping the council from £139.4 million to £138.8 million—only £0.6 million? Why are the Government also causing £100,000 to be spent on sending out letters to all council tax payers, telling them that there is a reduction of about £11 a year? Would it not have been far wiser to give credit of that £11 to council tax payers next year, bearing in mind the Government's—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is launching on a speech.

Nick Raynsford: I recall the hon. Gentleman's intervention in the debate on 29 April—I announced then our intention to designate specific authorities, including Torbay council—in which he welcomed our decision. We are simply proceeding with the decision that was announced on that occasion. I will explain the full circumstances in the course of my statement.
	Subject to the approval of the House, I shall make the order and issue notices to those authorities advising them of the maximum amounts. They will then be required to recalculate their budget requirements and issue new council tax bills—or, in the case of the Hereford and Worcester fire authority, to issue new precepts. The effect is that the authorities will have had their budgets and council tax capped.
	I made a statement in the House on 29 April about authorities that had set excessive budgets for the current year. I welcomed the fact that the average increase in council tax in England this year was 5.9 per cent., which was less than half the previous year's increase and lower than many people had predicted. A large number of authorities set lower council tax increases in 2004–05 than they had originally proposed. That was in no small measure due to the Government's strong message that high council tax increases were both unacceptable and unnecessary.
	Some authorities' budgets and council tax increases were still too high, however, and imposed unreasonable burdens on council tax payers. I said then that the Government were designating seven authorities for in-year capping and nominating a further seven authorities with a view to taking action to limit their budget requirement increases in 2005–06. The designated authorities then had 21 days in which to challenge the maximum budget requirements that we said we were proposing to set. Those were the levels at which they would need to calculate their budgets in order for them not to be defined as excessive according to principles determined by the Secretary of State.
	As I said in the written statement that I made to the House on 8 July when the order was laid, all the designated authorities challenged the proposed maximum budgets. Ministerial colleagues and I met all seven of them as well as the seven nominated authorities. Having carefully considered the representations that they made, both orally and in writing, and having taken into account all relevant information, we have decided as follows.
	We shall set maximum budgets at the levels originally proposed for five authorities—Herefordshire, Nottingham, Torbay, Fenland and Shepway—and set a maximum budget for the Hereford and Worcester fire authority that is £1.044 million higher than we had originally proposed to reflect the savings that we judged the authority can reasonably be required to make. We shall cancel the designation of Telford and Wrekin and nominate it instead. I have proposed a notional budget for the authority this year at the same level as we originally proposed for the maximum budget, had we capped it.

Eric Pickles: On Telford and Wrekin, the Minister has made a sensible move from designation to nomination on the grounds that the savings—only 68p—would be insignificant. In respect of Nottingham, given that the cost of re-billing will be more than the amount saved, why not adopt the same procedure there?

Nick Raynsford: In the case of Telford and Wrekin, the rebate was only 66p for band D property for the full year; in the case of Nottingham, it is £2.48—a significantly higher figure. [Interruption.] Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that when the authorities set excessive budgets, they took the risk of being required to re-bill. We made it absolutely clear that we would use our capping powers and that if authorities were designated they would be required to re-bill for a lesser amount. No authority can say that it acted in ignorance of the position. As the hon. Gentleman will understand, when one sets principles—as we have; we announced them on 29 April—it is right that those principles should be applied, and they have been applied.

Graham Allen: Would it not be sensible to set the bar at the amount at which it would not cost taxpayers more to re-bill than they would gain by having the rebate, so to speak? In that case, both Telford and Nottingham would easily fall beneath the bar.

Nick Raynsford: I hear what my hon. Friend says, but one of the difficulties is that the estimates of the cost of re-billing vary quite significantly from authority to authority. In the case of Nottingham, it is quite a significant amount—more than £2 per individual council tax bill. In a Committee debate earlier this year, the Opposition spokesman said that he thought that the cost of re-billing would, on the whole, average between 80p and £1 per household. If that estimate were correct and Nottingham were able to re-bill at that level, the cost of the re-billing would be less than the impact of the cap. One can only try to take account of such information, but as I said earlier, the important point is that the principles be applied in a rigorous and fair way.
	Telford and Wrekin was given 21 days in which to challenge its proposed notional budget, because it had been nominated for the first time and was in the same position as the other nominated authorities. Once we finally set the notional budgets, we will use those budgets rather than the authority's actual budgets to measure future budget increases for capping purposes.

Alan Simpson: I want to follow up the Minister's comment about principle. Will he confirm that Nottingham does not object at all to the principle that it should adhere to the Government's spending limits? Is not the absurdity of it all putting the council into a position in which it is required not only to adjust this year's spend, but to incur greater costs in re-billing than it would cost to adjust the spend and the bills in subsequent years? Is that not the principle to which we should adhere?

Nick Raynsford: No. As I pointed out in response to the earlier question of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), the actual cost of re-billing varies. We have seen significant variations in the estimates that we have had from different authorities and I have to say that Nottingham's is one of the highest. Another factor to which I must draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) is that Nottingham has the sixth worst collection rate of council tax of any authority in the country. It collects less than 90 per cent. of the total council tax due. In those circumstances, I have to say that it is incumbent on the authority to think about how to improve its own efficiency to collect rather more of the council tax owed to it. If it were successful in doing so, there would be less need for large council tax increases, which impose unreasonable pressures on council tax payers.
	Final amounts for the notional budgets will be determined once we have carefully considered any representations made by the eight nominated authorities. There is no parliamentary procedure involved in setting notional budgets for nominated authorities. Therefore the draft order before the House today deals only with the maximum budget set for the six designated authorities. In laying the order, we are keeping our promise to act against high council tax increases. The Government have provided all authorities with above-inflation increases in general grant for two years running, and have increased funding to local government by 30 per cent. since 1997. In exchange, we made it clear to authorities that we expected them to budget prudently. There is no justification for excessive tax increases. I hope that the House will support the order.

Eric Pickles: There was a time when capping was necessary; when it was the last line of defence for local residents against extremist councils determined to take on the Government; when Labour councils ordered taxicabs to hand out redundancy notices to staff; and when factory roofs were removed to avoid paying excessive local taxation. But those days have long gone. Such clashes changed local government for ever. There are no real rogue authorities trying to bring down the Government in the bunch arbitrarily selected for capping. They may rank from the excellent to the gorblimey, but they are no threat to the Government's medium-term financial settlement.

Anthony Steen: The Liberal Democrat council in Torbay is certainly a gorblimey council. It has been a disaster and performed poorly. However, is my hon. Friend aware that sending out the council tax revision will cost £100,000? The Liberal Democrats have closed many of the public loos in the Riviera area, but they could open them all again with that money.

Eric Pickles: That would certainly be a more convenient solution. My hon. Friend is right about the management of Torbay.
	Capping these authorities—even Torbay, Shepway and Nottingham—is like breaking butterflies on the wheel. Surely the Minister was right when he talked some years ago of
	"the unfairness and unsatisfactory nature of the process."
	He was certainly right when he said:
	"We see a sad and sorry picture of the imposition of centralised diktats by Ministers who cannot possibly understand the intricacies and the detailed implications for local communities".—[Official Report, 24 June 1992; Vol. 210, c. 344–46.]
	How haunted the Minister must feel by his almost youthful words! However, he is not alone in having bitterly to eat his past words.
	As recently as 12 months ago, councils that were deemed to be excellent or good by the Audit Commission were promised freedom from capping restraints—a promise that has now been broken. Herefordshire unitary district council was graded "good" in its comprehensive performance assessment of December last year. Telford and the Wrekin UDC was graded "excellent" and Fenland was only two half points away from being graded "good". The Government's White Paper, entitled "Quality Public Services", stated:
	"Decisions on local taxes are a vital part of local democracy and accountability. They should be taken by the local authority, based on the costs it faces and of the local people's willingness to pay."
	An earlier Labour party document—"New Politics, New Britain: Restoring trust in the way we are governed"—said that reserved powers for capping should be used only "for extreme cases". So what has brought on the Government's blind panic?
	The principal architects of this state of affairs are not the councillors, officers or residents of Nottingham, Torbay, Herefordshire, Fenland, Hereford and Worcester and Shepway: they are the Government. For years they have used the council tax for a purpose for which it was never intended—to transfer expenditure from central to local government without sending the necessary income to cover the burdens. The council tax is the Government's favourite stealth tax.
	We need only look at the Audit Commission's report, "Council tax increases 2003–04: Why were they so high?" It said:
	"Slightly more than half the total increase is due to national pay and price inflation . . . The causes of increased spending by councils included . . . national priorities, such as the requirement to increase funding for schools by an amount determined by government or to meet national waste recycling targets."
	Above all, the Audit Commission cited grant redistribution:
	"We found a clear association between the size of grant increase a council received and their increase in council tax."
	With the exception of Shepway and possibly Torbay, those councils have been caught by the change in grant and the increased Government burden.
	There is more than a whiff of arbitrariness about the use of the capping criteria and threshold. Six uncapped unitary authorities have higher percentage budget increases than Telford and Wrekin, while five have higher percentage band B and D precept increases. But Telford and Wrekin has been nominated, while other authorities have not. In addition, some of the tiers of council that have been capped have higher increases but not high levels of council tax, while other tiers of council have the dual threshold applied.
	Let us take one example. Fenland has a precept increase in cash terms of just £27. In terms of their final bill, Fenland residents pay the lowest average council tax in Cambridgeshire—£904, compared with £973 in Liberal Democrat-run Cambridge. In Fenland, the precept, including the parish precept of £222 in 2004–05, is far less than that in many Labour councils. For example, the Prime Minister's district of Sedgefield levies a precept of £326 a year—the largest district precept in England and £104 more than Fenland. Why has the Prime Minister's district not been capped? I hope that the Minister's judgment in these matters has not been affected because the order coincides with the coming reshuffle, although, of course, we wish the Minister well.
	The amount of money that will be returned is not even significant. It is £2.9 million, and the rebilling cost is estimated at between £1.1 million and £1.5 million.

Nick Raynsford: Perhaps I can set the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest. The reason why Sedgefield council has not been proposed for capping is that the increase in its budget requirement this year was 0 per cent. Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that an authority that does not increase its budget requirement at all should be capped?

Eric Pickles: The Minister makes my point for me. Look at the size of the grant that Sedgefield received. I cannot help but feel that the good people of Fenland and Sedgefield will wonder why the Government regard it as acceptable for one authority to make people cough up an extra £104, but unacceptable for another authority to charge considerably less.

Peter Luff: I have no idea about the background to the Sedgefield grant, but is it not the case that authorities that whacked up their council tax in previous years, when there was no capping, and have imposed small increases this year, have got away scot-free, while authorities that did not whack up their council tax in previous years and which have imposed reasonable increases this year are capped? Where is the logic in that?

Eric Pickles: There is no logic; my hon. Friend is right. As he suggests, the Government are in an absolute panic. As soon as we have a pensioners' revolt, they get into a blind panic, and they look to the Minister to get them out of the mess. He has cobbled the provisions together to the best of his ability, which will, I hope, be rewarded towards the middle of this week.

Nick Raynsford: Let me put the minds of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues at rest. Fenland district council received a 4.8 per cent. increase in grant this year. Sedgefield council received an increase of 3 per cent. So it has nothing to do with the grant increase.

Eric Pickles: The Minister must understand that he changed the criteria under which grant was distributed. It is pointless looking at the figures on a one-year basis, because he fools no one—not this side of the House, his side of the House or, more importantly, local government.
	Most of what the Government want to achieve could have been achieved simply by nominating the authorities for next year. Anyone with a passing experience of local government will tell the Minister that cuts of this size in council budgets so late in the financial year will have a wholly disproportionate effect on council services. By the end of July, much council spending is committed and fixed. Such parts of the budget as can be released will bear a heavy burden indeed. Little wonder that the Local Government Association, on an all-party basis, has described the order as "inconsistent, unnecessary, unworkable" and lacking "a long term solution". For those reasons, we will oppose the motion.
	The Government have constantly broken their promises on capping. First, they said that they would not cap good and excellent councils, yet they have done so. Secondly, they said that they would cap only in exceptional circumstances, yet these councils are not exceptional. Thirdly, they promised fairness in the system, yet sadly their capping is both inconsistent and partisan.
	The Government may have broken their promises but their actions are consistent. The change in grant distribution was vindictive and fiddled. This year's settlement was vindictive and fiddled. The capping decisions following that grant distribution were vindictive, fiddled, partisan and pointless. The order must be opposed.

Graham Allen: I shall vote against the Deputy Prime Minister's order and in favour of my hard-pressed constituents and a new vision of where local government should go in future.
	As Josef K, the victim in Kafka's "The Trial" might have said, someone must have slandered Nottingham council, because one morning, without having done anything wrong, it was rate-capped. I must correct myself slightly. Nottingham council did something wrong: it went over what the Government later revealed to be its budget target by £180,000. On a total budget of £330 million, that represents an error of 0.054 per cent. recurring. There used to be a principle in law: de minimis non curat lex—the law is not concerned with trifles—but a recurring decimal is clearly not to be trifled with.
	The council immediately sought to amend its budget. Nottingham's MPs—my hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham, East (Mr. Heppell) and for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) and I—urged the Government to allow the council to come back into compliance, which it wanted, but we did not succeed. Instead, the council must now send new bills to all council tax payers—at a cost of £250,000—to save £180,000. At the same time my constituents, who are some of the poorest in the UK, cannot obtain £50,000 to save our drug abuse resistance education—DARE—project. I cannot get £30,000 from the ODPM to fund a study into why Nottingham, North is continually the constituency with the lowest educational attainment in the UK. There are many other small projects where I could find a home for that £250,000, but instead of allowing Nottingham to return to compliance, the Government, at the stroke of a pen, can blow £250,000 of local council tax payers' money—their money—on pointless re-billing.
	I fear that Nottingham city council was selected for this financial farce because it is a Labour council, and the Government wanted to add a Labour council to their list of the rate-capped. If so, that is the final touch of Kafka—a Labour Government penalising my constituents because they voted Labour; a Labour Government damaging the reputation of a council because it is Labour.
	The episode does not reflect well on any of those involved. The Government did not specify the budget they required from Nottingham until it was too late. They sent no warning letter to Nottingham, whereas they did to the other 65 councils. The Government office for the east midlands was kept informed at every stage, yet flagged up no problems for Nottingham's budget.
	None of those involved, including me, could believe that once the errors had been discovered the Government would behave so irrationally. It shows how far the British disease of over-centralisation has gone, and how much our Labour Government have, I am sorry to say, been consumed by it. As Neil Kinnock might have said: "You start with concepts that local electors cannot be trusted, they are then pickled into a rigid dogma—a code; and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Labour Government—a Labour Government—using post office vans to scuttle round a city handing out re-billing notices to its own electors. I am telling you no matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short-term egos, you can't play national politics with councils' reputations and with local people's services".
	The case for a radical reform of the relationship between central and local government has been eloquently made once again by this sad episode; not the tinkering with the council tax that has been trailed this week but allowing the British people what is commonplace in most western democracies—constitutionally independent local government. That local government will be free from begging for the 38 different income streams that come to Nottingham for priorities decided at the centre; free to raise whatever additional amounts it can justify to its electorate; free to respond to local needs with care and sensitivity, instead of the centre's one-size-fits-all mentality; free from the hypocritical rhetoric of "new localism" from those who, never having understood or even served in local government, none the less delight in pulling the levers from the centre; and, above all, free to make local decisions on behalf of local people.

David Tredinnick: It might help the Minister to know that the hon. Gentleman sought guidance from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, which I have the honour to chair. Indeed, he attempted to appear before the Committee, as he felt that the Government's approach to the order, which we considered last week, went completely beyond their powers. The Committee wanted to deliberate on that very point, but sadly we were unable to act, as it was not a case of law but one of policy. However, the fact that a Member representing Nottingham should have appeared before the Committee gives some indication of the concern in the midlands—I, too, represent a midlands constituency—at the appallingly cavalier way in which the Government have handled the matter.

Graham Allen: Indeed, I attempted to ensure that the order was not considered until the city of Nottingham had made the fullest possible representations through a memorandum to the hon. Gentleman's Committee.
	I am afraid that in this case central Government have again shown themselves to be inflexible, clumsy and bureaucratic. Although, like all on the Labour Benches, I hope for a third term, I hope also for a realisation in Downing street that local decisions are best taken by local government—a free, independent and strong partner to the centre—rather than the hollow sham that we have seen demonstrated again in the order.
	I will oppose the order. If the Opposition parties do not oppose it, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South and I will call a Division, but I hope that all who want to build local democracy will oppose the culture that has permitted this order.

Edward Davey: The hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) made an important and powerful speech. He made the case for local democracy extremely well and argued that the Government, in this measure as in others, are attacking local democracy, which is much to be regretted. Nottingham is my home town and I know that the people of Nottingham will be flabbergasted at the idea that the savings that the ODPM, in Whitehall, is demanding are less than the cost of re-billing.
	In responding to interventions on that point, the Minister argued that Nottingham is inefficient, that the billing costs are too high and that the council should improve its collection of council tax. Those points may be valid, but capping Nottingham is not the way to sort out inefficiency or a poor record for council tax collection; it is the wrong way, as the Minister should know.
	Unfortunately, the order is yet another attack on local democracy, and there have been quite a few recently. We have seen attacks on local police authorities and local education authorities, and unless there are some big surprises, tomorrow's statement will probably be the final nail in the coffin of new localism.
	The Minister has won many friends in local government by what he has said. He goes around councils and visits the LGA, and people feel reassured; but, unfortunately, he has come to the House to defend policy decisions taken by the Government—possibly in No. 10 or the Treasury, perhaps not in the ODPM, but he has collective responsibility for them—that amount to an attack on local government.
	The Minister, along with many of his colleagues, used to vote against capping when the Conservatives were doing it year in, year out. As the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said, the Minister used to argue against capping. I hope that he realises the extent of the hypocrisy tonight. He knows that a lot of the trends that are happening under the Government are bad for local democracy. On the LEA point, he spoke strongly against that in May, so he realises that the Government are going backwards in their attempt to strengthen local democracy.
	I gave the example of Nottingham, but the Minister will not be surprised that I want to talk about two other examples. Shepway district council—a small council— is being capped tonight, and rebilling will cost it £93,000. Nottingham's budget is more than £300 million, but Shepway's budget is £15.5 million. Its rebilling costs will be almost £100,000, which is quite astonishing.
	The Minister claimed that, in deciding which councils to cap, he would take account of history and look at councils' records. Shepway's council tax is below average for a district council in Kent. In the past 10 years, the average rise in its council tax has been a mere 3 per cent. It is hardly a council with a high council tax. Unfortunately, when the new administration took over and looked at the books, it discovered that not only did Shepway have a low council tax, but that it had no financial reserves. Indeed, there was a black hole: the council was spending more than it was raising or receiving from central Government. It had to take serious action to put the finances in order. That shows the local issue in Shepway, and centralised capping cannot take that into account.
	Shepway council must now cut severely. Council staff will be laid off. What effect will that have on the performance indicators and the requirements from Whitehall to improve performance in Shepway? It will undermine them. Shepway will have to remove backing for funding programmes in the local community that were receiving match funding from central Government to hit other performance indicators laid down by Whitehall. Many of the council's economic regeneration ideas, which involve long-term investment to gain benefits, will be hit. In an area of relative poverty, such as Shepway, tourism is very important, yet the cuts that Shepway must make will hit that industry badly.
	Torbay's increase was under 10 per cent. We know that that figure is relevant, and we have seen it in the press. Some of the referendums run by the local paper showed that people accepted the 9.9 per cent. increase in council tax because it would still leave Torbay with one of the lowest council taxes in the south-west—but the Minister in Whitehall knew better than the local council, the local paper and the local people: he decided that the council must be capped.

Adrian Sanders: Is my hon. Friend aware that, taken over two years, the increase is lower than any of the other councils in the area and that, taken over three years, it is still lower than any of the others? Where is the justice in the proposal?

Edward Davey: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Again, the proposal goes against the Minister's assurance that he would take account of recent history. He has clearly failed to do so. We thought that the Government had moved from crude capping, but it is still there. As my hon. Friend has told me in private conversations, Torbay council receives less in grant per capita than the average unitary authority. Indeed, it receives £26 per resident less than the average unitary authority. Not only does it have a recent record of low council tax, but it receives less support from the Government. One can understand why the people of Torbay support the council.

Anthony Steen: rose—

Edward Davey: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, but I wonder whether he will be consistent.

Anthony Steen: I have urged the Government to cap Torbay, and I support that—it was the right decision—but I question something else. The Government have capped Torbay, but they will charge £100,000 for the postal distribution to achieve a saving of about £10 per person. I ask the Government to review that position. I have supported the Government's view, but I now think that they should not charge the £100,000, but give a credit next year. That is why I oppose the order. Although I support the capping, I do not support the way that the Government are doing it. That is a different point.

Edward Davey: I very much regret giving way to the hon. Gentleman. I should have thought that he would say his constituents pay higher council tax than the people of Torbay and that they would therefore love Torbay's council tax. I wondered whether he would be consistent, but we heard from his own lips that he supports capping and worries about the consequences of capping. I know that he likes to have it two ways most of the time, but I am afraid that he cannot do so when we are debating on the Floor of the House.
	The hon. Gentleman is right that rebilling will cost a staggering £100,000—10 per cent. of the required savings. There will be cuts in things for which the people of Torbay voted—for example, the flowerbeds. That may not seem important to some hon. Members, but it is very important to tourism in Torbay, in attracting visitors to the area and in ensuring that Torbay is a beautiful town that people want to visit. There will be cuts in the toilets that people want. There will be a lot of cuts that will hit the people of Torbay very seriously. What is the benefit? It is some 25p a week. I do not think that many people from Torbay will write to the Minister to thank him for that extra 25p, when they know that Labour Ministers are responsible for the cuts in the area.
	The order is particularly regrettable given that the LGA—a cross-party body of Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat and independent councillors—has argued long and hard against capping. It is extremely angry and disappointed about the Government's decision. Anyone who has read the LGA's brief, to which the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar referred, will see the extent of that concern. As the hon. Gentleman said, the LGA says that capping is totally inconsistent with what Ministers have said in White Papers, in relation to the CPA process and in their speeches. Capping is inconsistent with stated Government policy.
	As the LGA says, one would have thought that capping was unnecessary this year. The Government cajoled, encouraged and bullied councils to reduce their council tax rates. The Minister was right to do so. The Government used the threat of capping for that purpose, and they were successful to an extent. So why do they need to go ahead with capping? Given that the average rise this year is one of the lowest since the council tax was, unfortunately, introduced by the Conservatives, one would have thought that the capping powers were not necessary.
	As the LGA also says, the proposal is unworkable. We have talked about the billing costs, but there is a much more fundamental point to make about prudent financial management. Councils must start to think long term. They must plan their council tax rates and budgets for the long term, and the Minister has recognised that. Last week, in the comprehensive spending review, we heard that, at long last, the Minister and the Chancellor will allow local authorities to have three-year settlements because they recognise the importance of long-term planning, but capping goes exactly in the opposite direction. Some of the services that the councils listed for capping will cut represent investment that they wanted to make to provide returns to the public in better services and better value for money in a few years' time. The proposal constitutes exceedingly bad financial practice.
	Capping has never been and is not the solution. The solution is local democracy. Let the people vote. Let them vote out councils of whatever party when they do not like the services that they are given at the cost that they are charged. That is the solution.
	Tomorrow, we will be promised a solution—we will be given the bait of a solution. However, many of us doubt whether it will be forthcoming and whether the rhetoric that will come tomorrow will match the hyperbole that we heard at the start of the balance of funding review. Tinkering with the council tax will not deal with the underlying unfairnesses and the balance of funding problem. For some people and some councils, what may be on offer tomorrow might make the problem worse. Therefore, the Liberal Democrats will vote against the order to uphold local democracy and to support local people—whether they are in Nottingham, Shepway or Torbay.

Alan Simpson: There are times in any Parliament when Members of the House have to come into the Chamber to make genuine and difficult decisions about issues of principle—issues of war and peace and the testing of their conscience. I do not pretend that we can expect to be here without having to address such issues. However, this is not an issue of enormous political principle. I shall vote against the order, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen), but more out of embarrassment than anything else.
	This issue should be consigned to the cock-up theory of history. My hon. Friend came up with a quotation that was used by Neil Kinnock at the time that the local authority in Liverpool challenged the Government of the day over its democratic right to make decisions in defiance of the Government. It was perfectly possible then, and it is possible now, to argue that, in principle, once a Government have determined what they will fund in local government services, what then constrains local democracy should be located between the polling station and the police station. It is for the police to be able to charge councillors when they misspend public money and for the voters to be able to sack councils when they feel that their priorities are wrong.
	In the current situation, we do not have a local authority that set out to defy central Government. We do not have a Nottingham authority that sought to provoke a head-on collision with Government policy. In fact, we have exactly the opposite. Nottingham has the 29th lowest average council tax in the country, and it set out to try to second-guess what the Government would do in setting a spending limit. It looked with considerable caution and interest at the early warning signs that were given. It was not one of the initial 65 authorities that received warning letters in respect of the budgets that they issued. It was not one of the 40 authorities that was then invited to come down to London to meet the Minister and his officials to have their budget adjusted.
	In addition to that, the local authority approached all the local MPs and asked us, "Are we likely to be on the list? We do not want to be on anyone's hit list. Are we within the framework and unlikely to be capped?" Every one of us took soundings from Ministers and not one of us received an indication that Nottingham was anywhere near being on the capping list. It therefore came as an enormous surprise and disappointment to the authority to find that, somehow, it mysteriously appeared as a rogue authority.
	Following that, we then attempted to comply with the requirements that the Minister set out. On 13 May, Nottingham MPs set up a meeting with the Minister and his officials to try to say, "Okay; if we have to find a way of removing the £180,000 overspend on a £331 million budget, let us talk about the practical ways in which we can do that." Not a shred of the conversation at that meeting was about defiance. Everything in it was about compliance. The authority said to the Minister and his officials, "Just tell us which of the following ways we can adjust the spend this year and accommodate that formally within the budget for the year that follows." It was a practical and constructive response to a line that the Government had drawn.
	I do not want to go into too much detail about where the initial confusion lay. It is fair to say that a whole series of percentage increase figures were bandied about. I am prepared to accept that Nottingham, as a local authority, should accept some of the responsibility for the confusion. I also think that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister should take a degree of the responsibility, because it would have been helpful if the submission sent to the office had been opened on the file. It was not; such is life.
	The response to the problem is to find a practical way out that does not breach the principle that the Government set out, which was a line of spending. We should look to construct relationships between central and local government that are constructive rather than punitive. The decision that is embodied in this order is nothing other than punitive.
	I cannot explain rationally why Nottingham should have been reincluded on the list when all the indications that we received in respect of every single representation made were that the city would not be on it. My only explanation is that the city was nobbled. I do think that it was necessarily nobbled by the Minister, but by Downing street. I think it was nobbled because, pragmatically, there was a feeling that a Labour authority was needed on the list to give a spurious sense of fairness and balance. So, in pursuit of the spurious, we now have the absurd position in which, for council tax payers in Nottingham to receive a rebate of what the city calculates to be an average of £1.83 per household per year, we will have to spend £250,000 to rebate £180,000, giving a grand total of £430,000 of spending for nothing. This is the politics of the absurd.
	I ask the Minister to consider the three options that face him and the House tonight. The first is to remove Nottingham from the order altogether. The second is simply to remove the requirement for rebilling. If there is a principle at stake and Nottingham's name should remain on the list, at least allow us to act in a way that incurs least cost and leaves most resources to be deployed in the interests of the council tax payers of Nottingham. Those are two constructive ways out and the city council would happily comply with them. That is the way to embody both principle and pragmatism to address a solution to the line that the Government have defined.
	There is, however, a third way out, and it is one that I have never raised in the House before. I have never questioned the tenure of office of anyone. However, I know that if such a decision had been taken by a local authority and had been raised in the House, Members of both sides would say, "We have to question the competence of this local authority and we ought to call on its members to resign or be sacked. We have to ask them to defend their right to occupy their positions in the face of decisions that are monumentally absurd." If we cannot go for either of the two initial options, the same questions have to be asked of the Minister.

Malcolm Moss: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson). He made an excellent speech in which he exposed the illogicality of the Government's position and their complete lack of principle in what they seek to achieve through the order. I speak on behalf of the district of Fenland in my constituency, and I have to say that, initially, I thought that we had been badly done by until I heard the stories this evening, particularly the story from Nottingham, which defies all logic and description.
	The Minister said only in April:
	"The Government therefore intend to take action against those authorities whose budget requirements they consider to be excessive."—[Official Report, 29 April 2004; Vol. 420, c. 1019.]
	The key word is "excessive" but nobody, not least the Minister or the Government, have actually defined what they mean by it. It can mean one thing in Nottingham and another in Fenland, Shepway or Torbay. No one to whom I have talked in the Local Government Association or who has any experience of local government finance can find a common thread of logic in what the Government are trying to do. Like the hon. Member for Nottingham, South, I have concluded that they decided that they had to make an example of some councils and that they needed a spread of councils. When the Wrekin dropped out, they had to find a scapegoat Labour council, so Nottingham entered the frame. I think that Fenland is the scapegoat Conservative council.
	Let us consider what "excessive" might mean, to try to understand why the councils have suddenly been caught in the net. Perhaps the percentage increase was thought to be excessive—I thought that the Minister indicated earlier that that was his main criterion. However, Huntingdonshire district council, which is also in Cambridgeshire, increased its council tax by a larger percentage than Fenland this year, so that cannot be the criterion. Perhaps the Government considered whether there was an excessive increase in band D council tax levels, but the evidence shows that Fenland does not meet that criterion either. Perhaps it was thought that the spending per head in Fenland was out of control or too high, but it has the lowest such spending in Cambridgeshire and one of the lowest of any shire district in the country. A further factor considered might have been the finite size of the budget, but as we can see from the order, Fenland's budget of £12.22 million is the lowest of any council in the list. Fenland does not meet any of those criteria, so we must find another explanation.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) said, it has been obvious for some time that the Government have used council tax over the past five, six or seven years as a stealth tax to draw more money out of tax payers to fund other things. They have kept grants low, and although they boast of a year-on-year increase, they do not explain that some 15 per cent. of the total grant money is kept on one side and ring-fenced for specific grants. The Government and the Minister decide where to spend that money and—surprise, surprise—it is targeted not at my constituency, that of the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr.   Sanders) or even those of Nottingham Members, but elsewhere. However, the top-slicing of 15 per cent. of the money for those specific grants means that there is less available to fund the basic services that we all want in our constituencies.
	Statistics show that the average total council tax bill in Fenland is the lowest in Cambridgeshire. The total bill is on average £83 a year per dwelling lower than the county average. The bill in Fenland is £60 lower than the average English bill and more than £130 lower than the shire district average. Fenland has a low tax base, with 85 per cent. of properties in bands A, B and C. That will come as a major surprise to many hon. Members in the Chamber because although those statistics smack of inner-city property values, my seat has been held by the Conservatives for the past 17 years—it was Liberal for a brief period before that. That means that every pound that Fenland adds to its council tax raises only £28,000, whereas every pound that neighbouring Huntingdonshire puts on its council tax bill raises double that amount—£56,000. An equalising measure should be built into any sensible formula calculation to compensate the parts of the country—mine is not the only one—with low tax bases because of their low property values. Fenland is penalised principally by its low tax base. It must increase its council tax at double the rate of its neighbouring council to provide the services that the Government demand of it, but that cannot be right.

Bill Wiggin: I agree with my hon. Friend and I am fascinated by his speech because, as he will know, Herefordshire suffers a similar social distribution and has received equally unfair treatment from the Government. Perhaps I am being cynical, but does he agree that the measure has been exclusively designed to score political points and that it has nothing to do with any impact on local people?

Malcolm Moss: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I tried to make that point earlier in my speech and concurred with the hon. Member for Nottingham, South that that was what the Government were attempting to do. They needed scapegoats and decided that they had to give the impression of being tough by bearing down on councils in which council tax was increasing above a certain level. However, they are being dishonest because council taxes throughout the country have been going up by double the rate of inflation or more over the past six or seven years. Everyone's council tax has gone up because the Government have depressed the level of grant as a proportion of what they expect councils to do.

Nick Raynsford: indicated dissent.

Malcolm Moss: The Minister shakes his head, but my point is true. The fact that 15 per cent. of the total money is taken out for specific grants means that there is less money to go around for the provision of basic services.
	The situation gets worse for Fenland. For as long as I can remember—certainly this was true when I was a councillor 17 years ago—we have been asking for the same area cost adjustment for Cambridgeshire as that enjoyed by Essex, Hertfordshire and the south-east planning region as a whole. We had the incongruous situation of a school in Royston, Hertfordshire, getting almost double the per capita spend for education as a commensurate school just over the border in Cambridgeshire. That made no sense, so we tried for some 20 years to get fairness and equalisation in the system. To give the Government credit, they finally examined the formula about two years ago and decided to revamp the system by giving a form of area cost adjustment, albeit probably with a different name, to councils throughout the country. The county of Cambridgeshire and its shire districts were included in the revaluation of the amount of grant needed to deliver the right level of services.
	Instead of getting the money, however, we now find that the crazy policy of floors and ceilings has come into play. Last year, Fenland was short-changed by more than £500,000, while £420,000 was not given in grant this year, despite the fact that it was calculated under the new formula. Fenland is supposed to find £300,000 under the capping arrangement, but that is less money than we should be getting under the new formula. Where is the logic in that? I wish that the Minister would intervene to put me right because I cannot understand the situation at all.

Ronnie Campbell: Nor can anyone else.

Malcolm Moss: I thank the hon. Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) for his interjection.
	Some £420,000 has been withheld from Fenland this year to provide the level of services that it wants, but the Government have also come in with a pincer movement. They have set up the comprehensive performance assessment, but it probably costs our councils a large amount to pay for that because people come in and take up officer time for weeks on end, and councils have to jump through hoops set by the Government to get a comprehensive performance assessment grading. There are four grades: failing, poor, good and excellent.
	What does my poor Conservative council do? Foolishly, in my opinion, it decides to strive for excellence. I do not know why, but it decided to do that. It was a poor council two years ago, so the incoming Conservative group, under fairly able and aggressive leadership, cleaned out the old guard and brought in new ideas. Within two years it is two half-points away from being assessed as "good". On a different day it would have scored those half-points, got 41 instead of 40 and been categorised as a good council. Why are the Government setting up these systems for councils to measure themselves and then kicking them where it hurts most for other sorts of reasons? Here is a council striving to measure up to the Government's standards, almost getting into the "good" category, and being carved up by an illogical decision by the Government.
	I do not think the Minister is responsible for that. I have clashed with him on many occasions and I have always had him down as an extremely sensible, practical, pragmatic Minister, but not for one minute can he justify what he is proposing tonight.

Eric Pickles: I did not want to let my hon. Friend's speech to go by without confirming what he said about floors and ceilings. Fenland, according to the Government, should be spending more. It has moved to a position where the Government say it should pay and it is being penalised for following Government guidelines.

Malcolm Moss: That is right. If one adds the £300,000 that the council now has to save to the £420,000 that it did not get, that is £720,000 out of a budget of £12 million. It is an enormous amount of money.
	The council has attempted to jump through the Government's hoops. It has even started on the Government's pet projects, such as recycling. That is not yet mandatory but it will be eventually, and we all agree that it is probably a good thing. So what is Fenland doing? It is spending £204,000 setting up a recycling scheme. The Government are also keen on e-government. The council is spending £100,000 on that. That is £300,000 on those two features alone, in which the Government are encouraging councils to become involved. That sum matches the saving that the council must produce.
	I am not usually spiteful, but I have said to my council, "Ditch at a stroke all these Government requirements. Just ditch them. Why should we play the Government's game and then find that we get knee-capped for doing it? It is ridiculous."
	The hon. Member for Nottingham, South made three proposals to the Minister. I am not sure I could endorse the third option. It comes more powerful from the Government Benches than from ours. We ask for it all the time and get nowhere. However, the two other options are important. What is proposed is illogical. It makes no sense to anybody. It is a spiteful action. The case has not been made tonight or on a previous occasion, and no one to whom I speak who has any understanding of these matters understands why the Government are doing it.
	If the Government want to set a few councils apart and appear to be disciplining them, fine, but we will be two thirds of the way through the year when the new bills go out. There is only a 10-month direct debit system and the bills cannot be prepared and sent out until October, which will be about the sixth month of the 10. People will already have paid, so what is the point? Figures have been mentioned tonight—in the case of Nottingham, £250,000—for the re-billing. We think that in Fenland the figure will be about £80,000. That is an extra cost that the council tax payer will have to bear.
	Why penalise people in low-value properties? We should be looking to support them, rather than adding further burdens to their council tax payments. If the Minister wants to make his point and rap a few knuckles, that is fine, but instead of going through the irresponsible and stupid procedure of re-billing, why do we not say to the councils, "Next year you will rebate the amount we calculate that you should save, or just have a zero rate increase in your council tax." That is not a problem. While he is at it, why does the Minister not pay Fenland the money that his Government, by their own formula, deem that it needs to deliver a standard service?

Peter Luff: I always find it easier to attack a Government policy, or anything for that matter, if I understand the logic that lies behind it. I cannot begin to comprehend the logic that lies behind the order that we are considering tonight. I genuinely do not understand it. The Library has produced a helpful summary of the capping order and points out that the savings are tiny in relation to the budgets of the authorities being capped. Without doubt, Nottingham is the most bizarre case, with a projected saving of £180,000 out of a budget of £131 million. It literally defies description. I cannot understand why that is even being considered.
	I shall speak particularly of the Hereford and Worcester fire authority, which has one of the larger percentage savings, but even then, it is less than 4 per cent. of the budget. That is hardly the stuff of the heady days of capping under the last Conservative Administration, when real sums of money were being discussed. Whatever the merits of capping, real sums were then being discussed. One can make the case, and I made it at the time in private, that capping is a bad thing, because the folly of local authorities should be exposed. But there is no justification for such extraordinarily small percentage savings.
	On top of that, as the debate has so clearly highlighted, there is the folly of the costs of re-billing. Again, Nottingham is the most bizarre case, with the cost of re-billing being about one and a half times the money saved. My authority, the Hereford and Worcester fire authority, is the second most bizarre. The cost of re-billing will be half the sum saved, and that cost falls back on the authority and has to be found from its resources, magnifying the effect of the cap. I heard nothing from the Minister tonight that helped me understand the logic underpinning the order.
	The Minister alluded briefly to future issues that will arise, should maximum budgets for next year be imposed. Both my fire authority and my police authority are extremely well run. The police authority has led the way in civilianisation. It has been an outstanding authority, but we now hear of the possibility that it will be capped in future years. The Minister will shortly receive a letter from the police authority that tells him that, were that to happen, it could not deliver the Government's declared aims for law and order. That is the consequence of the other, unspoken part of tonight's debate.
	It is true that we have seen massive increases in the portion of the council tax bill for West Mercia constabulary to meet the Government's objectives. I heard the Home Secretary today boasting from the Dispatch Box about the increased number of police officers. The only reason that we have increased numbers of police officers in Herefordshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire—the West Mercia authority—is that the council tax payer has to pay for them. The Government would not. No credit attaches to the Government for any of those officers.

Nick Raynsford: indicated dissent.

Peter Luff: There is no point in the Minister shaking his head. It is true. Both the police and the fire authorities are monstrously funded. What world is the Minister living in? [Interruption.] The real world, he says. I invite him to come and see the Hereford and Worcester fire authority for himself, and not to rely on the representations that he receives. He has reduced the amount of money that we have to save, so it is clear that he realised he had made a mistake. He went halfway to meet it but he could not go all the way. Again, saving face is the order of the day for the Government. Had he listened properly to those representations from the fire authority, he would have abandoned that ridiculous idea.
	The fire authority is required to cut about £1 million from its budget of £25 million. This is its first year as a precepting authority. It is worth recalling that the problem of the underfunding of the fire service in Herefordshire and Worcestershire has gone on for years—and I say this to be bipartisan—under Governments of both political persuasions. The response of Hereford and Worcester, which once formed a combined council but are now separate councils, has consistently been to spend above the standard spending assessment, year in, year out. When I was a young boy in this place in 1992 and 1993, representations were made to the then Conservative Government urging them to provide better funding for the fire authority, but it has not happened.

Bill Wiggin: My hon. Friend will be aware not only that my constituents will be rebilled for their council tax and police and fire authorities, but that a specific problem arises with regard to the Worcester fire authority. Although it is in an urban area, it is responsible for huge areas of countryside, so its cost base is very different. It is an extremely cost-effective authority and it did not need the order.

Peter Luff: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He might have added that there is a Labour chairman. If people are looking for a scapegoat, why pick on Nottingham? Why not just settle for Hereford and Worcester fire brigade and kill two birds with one stone?
	Let me refer to the detail of the cuts necessary in the Hereford and Worcester combined fire authority. Support budgets are down £372,000, the vehicle budget is down £164,000, there is a delay in an important new headquarters project, saving £81,000 and other minor capital projects are down £10,000. With regard to the integrated risk management plan, to which I understand the Government attach great importance, there will be a saving of £475,000. The modernisation project, a declared objective of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister that it regularly boasts about, has been abandoned with a saving of £151,000, and the various service delivery reductions amount to £245,000.
	To meet the cost of rebilling, £1.498 million must be saved. There will be no action on modernisation, deferral of the 2004–05 capital budget and no action on dealing with the comprehensive performance assessment recommendations. The authority now predicts a high probability of failure to meet performance standards. There will be no action on best-value programmes—another pet enthusiasm of the Government—and an increased failure to meet statutory requirements. There will also be a weaker support mechanism across the whole patch, including finance, member support, procurement and personnel and no replacement vehicles or equipment at all this year. There will be no action on equalities work—another Government issue—including necessary improvements to buildings, which I assume means that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 will be ignored, or on building replacement and improvement programmes. There will also be a withdrawal from various local partnerships, a significant reduction in safety education programmes and no action on fire safety initiatives,. The list goes on and on.
	All those things will save the average band D council tax payer 7p a week, or £3.73 for the year. That is what all this turmoil will save. It is literally—this is a word that we often abuse—incredible. Like Victor Meldrew, I really do not believe it. It is not as if the fire authority's spending or council tax levels are out of line with shire county averages. The authority is in line with or just above or below all of them. There is nothing outrageous about the council tax requirements imposed by the Hereford and Worcester combined fire authority. A very important point is that its level of grant per citizen is the second lowest in the country; it is beaten only by Wiltshire. It is incredible that so many good and important things should be put at risk.
	The Minister may well say, if he gets the chance to do so in this very short debate, that I welcomed the announcement when he originally made it. I did so for the following reason, which he knows is on the record: I thought that the detailed representations that he would receive from a small number of authorities would force him to recognise that the root problem was the monstrous underfunding that the police and fire authorities receive. I hoped that they would force a realisation of that fact.

Bob Russell: That is naive.

Peter Luff: I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, although I prefer the words "trusting" and "rational". Indeed, I prefer all kinds of other words, but perhaps I was naive after all. There has been a partial and grudging acceptance of part of the fire authority's case, but there is still the lunacy of £500,000 in re-billing costs. It is literally incredible.
	I urge the Minister, even at this late hour, not to proceed. He does not have to proceed to a vote on this foolish order. He can say that he has listened to the arguments, including the excellent speeches of his hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) and for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson), and that he will not proceed with the order. That option still exists.
	I rushed out of the Chamber a few minutes ago because a thought came to my mind about a word that is defined thus in the "The Concise Oxford Dictionary":
	"amusingly eccentric . . . crazy or reckless. n. an eccentric person."
	The word is, of course, "madcap", and it is a word that we apply to the Minister for Local and Regional Government.

Adrian Sanders: I have the good fortune to represent one of the main holiday and hospitality destinations in the United Kingdom. As tourism is the area's main industry, its local authority, whether as a district council or as a unitary authority, as it is now, has always been presented with big problems.
	The problem with local government in this country is that local councils are over-dependent on central Government for their income. The ratio in my area is 70:30, while the national average is 75:25. If an authority is that dependent on a paymaster, it is limited in how much it can do in its area. The calculation by the Local Government Association is that, to meet a 1 per cent. increase in costs locally, council tax has to be increased by 4 per cent.
	That gearing lies at the heart of the difficulties that all local authorities have in setting their budgets, but the authorities that we are discussing tonight have had particular difficulties this year. That is the basic unfairness about the order. It is this year on which the authorities are being judged, and not their performance over a number of years or over a given set of time in relation to the actual council taxes that they have set or to the increases. Of course, no account is necessarily taken of the amount of Government funding that they receive in any year, which itself can be different year on year, depending on the changes that central Government make to the formula.
	The problem of representing a fabulous constituency that so many people wish to visit and to live and work in, if they can find a job, is that we have to spend money to maintain that which attracts people. What we spend money on—illuminations, parks, gardens and toilets—is not statutory. For a unitary authority that depends on central Government for 70 per cent. of its expenditure, all the rules, regulations and targets that come down from above mean that very little is left for the non-statutory services, so they are the first things to be cut.
	Another problem with which many authorities have to cope, especially seaside resort authorities, is a transient population. Such populations tend to bring with them a number of social problems. We have a high level of educational statements—the authority of Torbay has more statemented children under the age of 10 than the entire city of Bristol. That is a cost that the local authority has to meet. We have rising numbers of kids in care. For a small unitary authority, the bill for one child, which can be almost £100,000 a year for 24- hour care, can completely skew the social services budget. Torbay has a large number of people who have moved in from inner-city areas and an abnormal number of children in full-time care. We also have an ageing population. When those people present themselves to the social services, councillors cannot say, "We cannot offer you anything as we are making cuts." They have to pay that bill.
	Therein lies Torbay's problem. Some £1 million has been overspent in social services. There are also the costs of all the Government programmes that have been imposed, including audit costs and comprehensive performance assessment costs of some £2.5 million. In Torbay's case, the actual grant formula is £26 per head less than in the average unitary authority, which accounts for another £1.1 million. Torbay starts £4.6 million down, and the Government say, "You must spend another £100,000 on rebilling."
	There is no justice in the order for any of the authorities. Tonight, hon. Members on both sides of the House have made good cases for every area, but the Government have made the case for neither the justice nor the logic of the order.

Nick Raynsford: The debate has been interesting and I shall try to respond to the hon. Members who have spoken.
	The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles) began by saying that capping is not necessary at this time, although he accepts that it is necessary on other occasions. Against the background of last year's 12.9 per cent. average increase in council tax, it is difficult not to see the need for capping. A number of other hon. Members recognised that the significant reduction in this year's council tax increases is because the Government made it clear that we would use our capping powers.
	The hon. Gentleman said that we have reneged on a pledge not to cap excellent and good authorities, but that pledge stood in the year in which it was made—we did not cap excellent authorities last year, despite the large increases. The hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar should be ashamed of Wandsworth council, which had the largest increase—55 per cent.—in the country, but we did not cap it because we had made a pledge. In the autumn, the Government put all authorities on notice that we would use our capping powers.

Eric Pickles: Will the Minister give way?

Nick Raynsford: No, I do not have time. The hon. Gentleman should pass the message back to Wandsworth. I have less than 10 minutes and a number of hon. Members made points to which I want to respond.
	The hon. Gentleman also said that capping should be used only in extreme cases. When he was in government, it was not a question of using capping occasionally, because it was used crudely and universally year after year. We have taken reserve powers, but we did not cap in any of the previous five years and we capped for the first time because high council tax increases made it absolutely necessary.

Malcolm Moss: Will the Minister give way?

Nick Raynsford: No, I will not give way. I made it clear that I will respond to the hon. Gentleman's point. If he intervenes, I shall have no chance to respond to points made earlier.
	My hon. Friends the Members for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) and for Nottingham, South (Alan Simpson) made sensible and fair representations on behalf of their authority. I am not endorsing the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South, but my hon. Friends made perfectly proper representations on behalf of their authority.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North argued that the increase in council tax above the excess level was only marginal in the case of Nottingham. However, a 9.8 per cent. increase, one of the largest in the country for unitary authorities, is not in my view marginal. [Interruption.] Perhaps it was 9.6 per cent., but it was certainly more than 9 per cent. [Interruption.] We have dealt with the issue of re-billing costs and the saving in earlier exchanges.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, North made the point that Nottingham had not been given advanced warning of being capped. When we sent out letters to individual authorities, the figures quoted by Nottingham city council did not put it in the danger zone. As soon as it became clear that Nottingham city council was considering an increase of the order of 7 to 8 per cent., a spokesman for my Department was quoted in the local newspaper as saying, "If the increase is of that order, it is in the danger zone." Nottingham received a clear warning.

Graham Allen: Will the Minister give way?

Nick Raynsford: No, because I must respond to other hon. Members. [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister is responding to the debate; let us have order.

Nick Raynsford: The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) considered our proposals an attack on democracy, but democracy depends on responsibility. He is only too happy to defend a Liberal Democrat council that had the largest single council tax increase of any authority in the country this year. He did not say that 28.4 per cent. is an unreasonable increase, and he will not say that. It is an indication of the Liberal Democrats' departure from reality that they cannot bring themselves to condemn increases of that order, which are clearly excessive. Shepway council's 28.4 per cent. increase was the highest in the country, and, contrary to what he said, it was 50 per cent. above the average increase for district councils. He should know that that authority cannot be treated as a marginal case, because the increase was substantial.
	The hon. Gentleman asked why we should cap when, in his words, Government threats were successful in reducing council tax to the lowest level for several years. Those threats were successful, and it is a pity that he did not welcome them, but some authorities did not reduce their council tax. Had we not used our capping powers, people would not have believed that we were serious.
	The hon. Member for North-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Moss) asked about our definition of "excessive" and claimed that we had not issued one. I issued that definition on 29 April when I made a statement about capping, and I shall repeat it to him now. The definition in the case of a district council is a budget increase of more than 2 per cent., a council tax increase of more than 8.5 per cent. and a band D council tax above the average for district councils. Fenland district council is being capped because its budget increase, council tax increase and band D council tax are above those thresholds—its band D council tax is about 50 per cent. more than the average for district councils.
	The hon. Gentleman mentioned Huntingdonshire, but he has obviously not been doing his homework. Huntingdonshire's average band D council tax is £95 and Fenland's is £206, which is why Fenland district council is in that particular position.
	The hon. Gentleman discussed Fenland having its grant withheld. He had the good grace to acknowledge that we reviewed the area cost adjustment and that Fenland, like Cambridgeshire, benefited from significant grant increases as a result. He knows that the operation of the floors and ceilings system is designed to protect authorities against unreasonable short-term fluctuations in their entitlement, but one cannot have floors without supporting the ceilings.
	The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) had the good grace to recognise that his remarks were inconsistent with his comments on 29 April, when he said:
	"On balance, I welcome the Minister's comments about Hereford and Worcester fire authority and West Mercia constabulary".—[Official Report, 29 April 2004; Vol. 420, c. 1029.]
	He does not understand the logic of capping. A budget increase of 19 per cent. and a council tax precept increase of 29 per cent. are massively above the figures for any other fire authority in the country, which is why Hereford and Worcester fire authority is in that position. He acknowledged that we have listened to the representations and made changes.
	The hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Sanders) discussed his authority's dependence on Government grant. His authority received a good grant increase of 6.9 per cent. and we expect all authorities with good grant increases to budget accordingly.
	I recognise that hon. Members have considerable concerns about the issues, and we listened carefully to the representations from the authorities concerned and made changes to the original proposals. The action proposed in the draft order and the separate action that we are taking on nominated authorities is a measured and proportionate response to excessive increases. Our approach makes use of the new, more flexible capping powers, which we introduced in 1997. Although I understand the concerns expressed by hon. Members, the truth of the matter is that the arguments advanced on behalf of individual authorities are, by and large, not unique—other authorities in similar positions did not set budgets that led to excessive increases.

Question put:—
	The House divided: Ayes 278, Noes 175.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That the draft Council Tax Limitation (England) (Maximum Amounts) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 8th July, be approved.

Public Audit (Wales) Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)

Don Touhig: I beg to move,
	That the programme order of 17th June 2004 in relation to the Public Audit (Wales) Bill [Lords] be varied as follows:
	Consideration and Third Reading
	1. Paragraphs 4 and 5 of the order shall be omitted.
	2. Proceedings on consideration and Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion:
	(a)   at the moment of interruption at this day's sitting, or
	(b)   one hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion for this order, whichever is the later.
	The Bill has received cross-party support, which was reflected in its smooth passage on Second Reading and in Committee. I hope that the motion will command widespread support, and I commend it to the House.

Bill Wiggin: We would normally object to a programme motion, because it is not the way in which to get the proper debate that measures need. However, under the circumstances and because we have found so much that is positive in the Bill, it is difficult to press for a Division. I shall therefore not object at this stage.

John Redwood: Hon. Members who are in the Chamber for this important debate would like to hear a little more from the Under-Secretary about the reasons for rushing the measure through. It is not good for parliamentary debate when we have plenty of time—the evening is yet young—and the big business has already been tackled if the Under- Secretary simply comes to the Dispatch Box and says nothing by way of introduction to what, I am sure, he regards as an important Bill for Wales. [Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Would hon. Members who do not wish to be present for the debate please leave the Chamber quietly?

John Redwood: To satisfy me that we can complete our proceedings in the specified time, it would be useful if, to avoid delay or a possible Division, the Under-Secretary would explain why he believes that the remaining issues can be tackled in the stated time.

Don Touhig: I shall happily respond to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who had responsibility for Welsh matters in a previous incarnation. The Bill received detailed consideration in the other place. In Committee, I said to the right hon., I mean, the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin)—he is not yet right hon., but you never know—that the Bill was assisted by the comments and contributions of the Opposition parties. We completed the Committee stage in less than one day.

Eric Forth: What?

Don Touhig: The right hon. Gentleman suggests that that is outrageous. If he paid attention to the pre-legislative scrutiny, which is now custom and practice when we deal with Welsh legislation, he might not think that it is outrageous. The Bill was considered in Committee, with 40-odd amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Leominster. They all received extensive consideration.
	Pre-legislative scrutiny also took place. The Welsh Affairs Committee produced a report, the relevant Assembly Committee produced a report and the Welsh Grand Committee debated the Bill a year ago. The measure has received much consideration and enjoys widespread support from all parties. I therefore hope that we can proceed to debating the amendment.
	Question put and agreed to.

Public Audit (Wales) Bill [Lords]

As amended in the Standing Committee, considered.

Clause 3
	 — 
	Studies for improving economy etc in services

Don Touhig: I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 4, line 30 at end insert—
	'(3A)   In determining how to exercise his functions under this section, the Auditor General for Wales shall take into account the views of the Audit Committee as to the studies which he should undertake or promote under this section.'.
	The amendment would require the Auditor General for Wales to take account of the views of the National Assembly's Audit Committee in determining which studies to undertake or promote in the exercise of his functions under clause 3. That provision will enable the Auditor General to undertake comparative cross-cutting and forward-looking studies on value for money.
	The Auditor General's powers to undertake value-for-money examinations are currently retrospective, in that they relate to the way in which the Assembly and its sponsored bodies have used resources in discharging functions. Sections 100 and 145 of the Government of Wales Act 1998, which relate to value-for-money examinations in respect of the National Assembly, Assembly-sponsored public bodies and national health service bodies in Wales, require the Auditor General to take account of the Committee's views. The amendment brings clause 3 into line with those provisions.
	In practice, the Auditor General would consult the Audit Committee on his proposals under clause 3. The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), who has apologised being unable to be present, remarked on the difference in approach during our debate in Standing Committee. I believe that the hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) also did that. I undertook to reflect on the remarks that were made. I have done that.

John Redwood: Will the Under-Secretary assure us that, if the Auditor General believes that an important item needs investigating but could prove embarrassing to the Assembly, he would none the less proceed in the public interest?

Don Touhig: The right hon. Gentleman knows from his ministerial experience that the Auditor General has always exercised such independence. In our debate in Committee and in another place, the Auditor General's independence was never questioned.
	In Committee, I undertook to reflect on the comments of the hon. Member for Caernarfon, which were supported by the hon. Member for Leominster. That is the reason for the amendment.

Bill Wiggin: I thank the Minister for introducing the Government amendment to subsection (3) of clause 3, which adds to the Auditor General's understanding of his abilities to comment on a body's objectives in considering their economy, efficiency and effectiveness. I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams), and I am pleased that the Government have undertaken, following the suggestion that we made in Committee, to modify the wording of this subsection to allow the Auditor General to make the most constructive input possible without impinging on his independence.
	We do not want the Auditor General to be constrained in doing his work and we were concerned that, as the Bill stands, the provision would have discouraged him from commenting on policies that he might discover to be causing ineffectiveness or inefficiency. However, this arrangement is the same as the one that applies to the Audit Commission, which has caused no problems in the current audit arrangements. The amendment will allow the Auditor General to learn and seek advice from the Audit Commission, and that will further guarantee that he will not be constrained by the wording of the subsection. We therefore intend to support the Government amendment.
	Amendment agreed to.
	Order for Third Reading read.

Don Touhig: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
	The Bill was brought from another place on 12 May. It received its Second Reading on 17 June, was considered in Standing Committee on 29 June and has been considered on Report this evening. It is an excellent example of how the Government and the National Assembly are working together in partnership in the interests of the people of Wales. It will deliver a unified public audit body with responsibility for public audit standards in Wales vested in a single, readily identifiable head—the Auditor General for Wales.
	The Bill's objective has been widely welcomed by all who have been involved in its early scrutiny. That includes the stakeholders, most notably the Auditor General for Wales himself, the National Assembly, the National Audit Office, the Audit Commission and the Welsh Local Government Association. I also welcome the fact that the Bill's objectives have generally received all-party support during its passage through Parliament, both here and in another place.
	The Bill was first published in draft in April 2003. More than 200 organisations were consulted, and the Bill has been scrutinised by both the Welsh Affairs Committee and the Committee of the National Assembly. Of the 41 recommendations for change or clarification made as a result of the pre-legislative scrutiny and public consultation, 19 were accepted. This process has given further proof, if any were needed, of the immense value of pre-legislative scrutiny in refining and improving draft legislation before its introduction to Parliament. The draft Transport (Wales) Bill represents a further significant advance in the development of pre-legislative scrutiny, in that it was considered last month by a joint Committee of the House of Commons and the Assembly.
	In addition, further improvements have been made to the Public Audit (Wales) Bill as a result of amendments made during its passage through another place and in this House. A total of 32 amendments have been made. Apart from reflecting great credit on the Members of both Houses who participated in the Bill's passage—they have made an important contribution—this process has also demonstrated the Government's determination to achieve a very high quality Bill in an open-minded, non-partisan way. It has demonstrated the House operating at its very best. A total of 23 amendments were made during the Bill's passage through the other place. Eight Government amendments were moved and accepted during its debate in Standing Committee, and I earlier moved a further amendment that resulted from that debate.
	In Committee, I also undertook to reflect on comments made by the hon. Members for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) and for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) on the principle that the Auditor General for Wales cannot question the policy objectives of a body for which he has audit responsibilities. The hon. Member for Leominster suggested that the wording of clause 3 might be modified to enable the Auditor General to make a
	"constructive input without impinging on his independence."—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 29 June 2004; c. 12.]
	I promised to look at the wording of the clause and consider whether it was possible or appropriate to make any changes. I have done so, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the wording of clause 3 preventing the Auditor General from questioning the merits of policy objectives is consistent with the provisions already enacted in the Government of Wales Act 1998. It is clear and unambiguous and it reflects a well-established, acceptable principle. As I said in Committee, it does not prevent the Auditor General from expressing a view on the way in which organisations are working towards achieving their objectives. For this reason, the Government are of the view that the wording should remain unchanged. I hope that I have been able to satisfy the hon. Gentleman's concerns on that issue and that he is content with the explanation that I have given him this evening.
	The hon. Gentleman also expressed the view in Committee that the treatment of criminal sanctions in the Bill was inconsistent, and he urged the Government to reconsider those provisions. However, the Government remain of the view that their position in trying to preserve consistency in sanctions in the context of primary legislation is entirely consistent. If criminal sanctions in primary legislation are to be reviewed, it is right that that should be done on an England and Wales basis, and not on a piecemeal basis.
	In Committee, I announced that the Government intend to amend section 49 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 to drop the imprisonment sanction that currently applies to the unlawful disclosure of information under its provisions. It will also be deleted from clause 54 once the Bill is enacted and receives Royal Assent. I mentioned in Committee that the detail of repeal is still under consideration, but it will be done at the earliest opportunity. That is an excellent example of how the Government are prepared to consider and act on the issue of criminal sanctions in a structured and consistent way.
	In addition to announcing the criminal sanction repeal, I also reaffirm the Government's determination to proceed with orders that will bring both section 49 of the Audit Commission Act 1998 and clause 54 of this Bill, once enacted, wholly within the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The amendments will be made before the end of the year—I first made that pledge to amend clause 54 on Second Reading, I repeated it in Committee, and I reaffirm it now.
	I wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones), who chairs the Welsh Affairs Committee, to parliamentary colleagues, and to the National Assembly for the scrutiny that they conducted when this Bill was presented in draft. The Bill, and the public audit process that it heralds, have benefited considerably from their endeavours. I also wish to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mr. Griffiths) for his chairmanship of the Standing Committee. He chaired proceedings in a good-humoured and thoroughly professional way, which is his hallmark. I know of his plans to retire at the next election—he will be sadly missed on both sides of the House.
	This Bill offers a single framework for public audit in Wales, with expertise brought together in a single body that will serve the whole spectrum of public sector bodies in Wales. That will complement the inclusive and cross-cutting way in which government works in Wales. A single audit body will also facilitate the development of and spread best audit practice. The Bill will ensure the maintenance and continuing development of the high standards of financial accountability and probity that already exist in Wales. Taxpayers have a right to expect continual improvement in the standards that underpin the spending of their money.
	The Bill will give the Auditor General the tools that he or she needs to meet the challenges that lie ahead: for instance, from the increasing complexity of financial management systems. It will enable him or her to be both an effective watchdog and a valuable adviser to the public sector in Wales. It will also enable the Auditor General and his or her staff to participate fully in the development of audit and corporate governance both within the United Kingdom and internationally.
	With those few remarks, I commend the Bill to the House.

Bill Wiggin: I have had an enjoyable day in Wales, at the Royal Welsh show. It is a shame that we are considering the Bill today, when Welsh Labour Members could have been at the show, along with the Prince of Wales. The Government seem to be keen to get Welsh business done this week, however, which is why the Welsh Grand Committee is sitting tomorrow, despite the fact that the report on which we will comment was released only at lunchtime today.
	We broadly welcome the Bill in principle, and believe that the consolidation of a single audit regime in Wales will benefit the people of Wales; the new Wales Audit Office has great potential to improve the best value use of resources in public services and government in Wales. The Conservatives have worked hard to improve the Bill as much as possible in both Houses of Parliament, and we owe our thanks to the noble Baroness Noakes and the noble Lord Roberts of Conwy, who contributed enormously to that improvement.
	In Committee, we proposed 44 amendments to improve the Bill, while Plaid Cymru proposed only two. The Liberal Democrats put down not a single, solitary amendment. I therefore hope that they will not try to claim the credit, although I suspect that they probably will.

Lembit �pik: I noticed that, in Committee, the hon. Gentleman criticised me for not being present for its proceedings. Was he aware of the fact that I was not on the Committee? In the context of this Bill, would he like a private audit of his parliamentary knowledge, so that he does not commit the same gaffe in future?

Bill Wiggin: The hon. Gentleman should have read Hansard more carefully. We were critical of his press release, to the Delyn Chronicle, I think, in which he claimed full credit for all the amendments to the Bill, despite the fact, as he has just told the House, that he was not on the Committee. I am therefore grateful to him for intervening at this moment, and he is welcome to dive in whenever he feels like doing so.
	The independence of the Auditor General is paramount, as are transparency and consistency. Unfortunately, I did not agree with what the Minister saidI feel that the Bill falls down on at least one of those, with inconsistencies remaining throughout the Bill. Most of its contents are lifted from the current audit arrangements for England and Wales under the Audit Commission Act 1998. It should have been based on the principles of effective audit of public money in Wales. The Government have worked hard with us to improve it significantly, but the opportunity to give Wales the best possible audit regime has to an extent been missed.
	The Bill is an amalgamation of existing and new provisions, so there is an underlying theme of inconsistency. One of the inconsistencies that concern us most appears in clauses 5 and 11. We have brought it to the Government's attention on several occasions. It concerns the Auditor General's right of access. Clause 5 deals with registered social landlords and local government, and applies criminal sanctions for non-compliance, whereas clause 11 deals with rights of access to general information, but no criminal sanctions apply.
	The Government have created inconsistencies in Wales because of their insistence on keeping criminal law consistent with England, but even that argument is faulty, because the Assembly is given the ability to create criminal offences in clause 39. Any consistency in criminal law between England and Wales will be broken as soon as the Assembly uses that power. There was the potential for Wales to have a far more logical audit regime if internal consistency had been the focus. In simply regurgitating what already exists in England, the Bill represents something of a missed opportunity for Wales.
	We think it important for the Bill itself to be consistent, so that the people of Wales are not faced with the potential confusion caused by different rules for different people. Either there should be criminal sanctions for all, or there should be none. We have made it clear throughout that we do not consider criminal sanctions necessary.
	Let me say something about schedule 2. As we said in Committee in connection with our new clause 1 and amendment No. 44, it is a shame that the Auditor General does not have power to extend his value-for-money studies to English local government. Under schedule 2 to the Audit Commission Act, the Audit Commission in England will be able to study Welsh bodies, but no such power is given to the Auditor General.
	I am sure we can trust the good will of the Audit Commission to co-operate if necessary, but the Bill should include a duty for the commission to co-operate in respect of the Auditor General's functions under sections 41 and 42 of the Act. I am sure that none of us would want Wales to be at a disadvantage, or would want the Auditor General's work to be hindered because he has no power to conduct comparative studies in England. It seems most unfair that the Audit Commission should have the equivalent power in Wales.
	In Committee we tabled some useful amendments on, for instance, electronic publishing, which I feel the Government did not take as seriously as I would have liked. We have the chance to create a new audit regime for Wales that is light years ahead, or at least a few steps ahead, of any other regime. I should have thought that that was in line with the Government's claim that they would make Wales a world-class place. The opportunity for Wales to lead the world in audit regimes has not been fully taken, and I think we should all regret that.
	I thank the Minister for what he has said today about clause 54, which is controversial. We welcome the removal of imprisonment from the list of criminal sanctions. It is a victory for whistleblowers throughout Wales, who no longer face the possibility of being put in prison for disclosing information about local government. Conservative Members have worked hard with the Government to improve the clause enough for us to be able to support it. Although the Liberal Democrats have tried to claim the credit, I think even they will have to admit that the further amendments are a result of pressure from the Conservatives and the Minister's hard workalthough I doubt that that will appear in their press release. They are likely to skate over that important fact.
	The Government's proposals and assurances, however, have not gone quite as far as we might have liked to safeguard whistleblowers in Wales who disclose information other than the exceptions in clause 54(2). We still have no access to the wording of the promised amendment to the Freedom of Information Act. In Committee and again today, the Minister said that the Bill should not be enacted until 2005, and that by then we shall have been able to see the wording of the amendment. I hope that our trust in that promise will not prove to have been misplaced.
	Overall, the Bill is a welcome measure for the people of Wales, so it has our support. While amendments have been made to the controversial clause 54, which deals with restrictions on disclosure of information, we must all ensure that whistleblowers are not deterred from reporting corruption in local government audit. We have tried our best to improve the Bill, and the 23 amendments made in the other place were the result, as I said, of the hard work of Baroness Noakes and Lord Roberts of Conwy.
	The creation of a single audit body for Wales will benefit the people of Wales. The Government have worked hard on consideration of our amendments, and the Bill is a better measure as a result. I was a member of the Welsh Affairs Committee when it began its consultation, so I know that the hon. Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) has done a great deal of work, as have all members of the Committee. Their contribution was valuable because the Government listened to them, and that was the most constructive aspect of pre-legislative scrutiny. It is, however, a shame that the Government have chosen the short-sighted approach of simply importing current audit arrangements instead of grasping the chance to make Wales the beacon of good audit practice.

Roger Williams: I, too, support the Bill. The Liberal Democrats have backed an improvement in audit arrangements in Wales for some time, and the Minister will know that a number of local authorities are concerned about the nature of audit reports and their public availability. The Bill will strengthen the position of the Auditor General for Wales, ensuring that his work is more widely available and is used to better effect. Local government was once afraid of his advent, but nowadays he is seen as a friend who can assist local authorities' work by improving the effectiveness and efficiency of public service delivery.
	Combing two audit bodies into one organisation will bring genuine benefits to Wales. One of my constituents, for example, complained about the disposal of surplus NHS property and planning arrangements for the site. Unfortunately, one audit body looked at details of the disposal while the other was brought in to look at the remaining problems. As a result, my constituent felt that the overall issue did not receive the attention that it would have received from a single body. Arguments about who was responsible for amendments, including Government amendments, are not edifying, but we should put on record our thanks to my noble Friends in the other place for their contribution. Lord Evans made a commitment to deal with the problems caused by clause 54, but it was left to the Under-Secretary to deliver the details of the solution in Committee and on the Floor of the House. We accept his commitment to amend the clause by altering section 49 of the Audit Commission Act 1998. On Second Reading, my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik) said that he did so because the Minister has an honest face but, in fact, the Minister is on the record as giving that assurance on at least three occasions.
	One of the Welsh Affairs Committee's concerns in taking evidence was that combining two bodies into a single body should result in lower overheads and costs. Work is going ahead to set up the audit body under the control of the Auditor General for Wales. He will surely ensure that his own business is run as effectively and efficiently as possible, and take the opportunity to reduce the associated overheads.
	Tribute has been paid to the work that the hon. Member for Clwyd, South (Mr. Jones) has done as Chairman of the Welsh Affairs Committee. Although the process can never be important as the outcome, that process has pointed the way towards greater co-operation between this place and the Assembly. I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman's efforts to ensure that such co-operation has proceeded smoothly and productively.
	The work of the Welsh Affairs Committee is greatly appreciated, as was the Minister's willingness to table amendments to ensure that section 49 of the 1998 Act meets our requirements. As such, we will support the Bill.

John Redwood: I welcome the principle of a more streamlined audit in Wales, and welcome the idea behind the Bill that the Auditor General for Wales should be concerned about efficiency, effectiveness and economyabout value for moneyas well as about regularity and ensuring high standards of accountancy throughout the Principality. I do not wish to be the party pooper tonight, given that there is much consensus between the major parties, but on Third Reading we should ask ourselves a basic question. Is it likely that the Auditor General, charged with the powers in the Billon the likely assumption that it goes through in its current formwill succeed in rooting out the waste and inefficiency that we know exists throughout government in Wales at all levels?
	We have been told by no less an authority than the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the United Kingdomon this occasion, he has probably underestimated the situation, but he is giving us a general truththat there is more than 21 billion of waste throughout UK government as a whole. Tonight, we are interested in only the Welsh portion of that figure. According to a rough calculation, one would assume about 1 billion-plus of waste in government in Wales. If we allow for the fact that some of that waste will be accounted for by the UK Government's doing Union things in Wales, we probably arrive at a rough figure of about 500 million of waste and unnecessary expenditurethe Chancellor must have that figure in mindin the devolved areas and local authorities, which the Auditor General should root out as his main task. The Minister is welcome to intervene if he has a more precise figure. I see that he is with me so far, because he is not seeking to intervene or to deny what I am saying.
	In his review, the Chancellor has greatly underestimated the extent of wasteful and unnecessary expenditure and flattered the public sector's efficiency and effectiveness; but better the sinner who repenteth a bit than the sinner who does not recognise that he is sinning at all. I am happy to start off by rooting out some 1 billion of wasteful expenditure in Wales, and I want an Auditor General who is capable of getting to grips immediately with the 500 million, which must be the devolved Welsh portion of the Chancellor's own figures.
	So how is the Bill going to help? We are told that the Auditor General will carry out studies to assess the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of various policies and institutions. The Minister has told usI am sure that he is rightthat the Auditor General will be fearless and independent. He will know that it is his job to root out all such problems in turn as he decides to study them, and then to lay measures before the Assembly so that it can see for itself just how bad things might be.
	That, Madam Deputy Speaker, is where I wonder whether the Bill is strong enough to deal with the extent of the waste already identified by the Chancellor. My worry is that worthy work will be done in the first year or twoall sorts of studies will be commissioned and much money spent on investigating and assembling figures, listening to what witnesses have to say and so forthbut the end result will not challenge the underlying problem, which is a top-heavy bureaucratic structure. I fear that we will not hear that there could be much cheaper and easier ways of achieving things if policies were changed. It is difficult for an auditor, who is used to checking, reviewing and ensuring that numbers are accurate in his professional career, to move into the much more dynamic task of asking the big questions: is the money wisely spent; is the policy achieving its objectives; are there other ways in which an administration could achieve its objective? Much of what is assessed will be deeply political territory.
	What if the efficiency review reveals that a wholesale transfer of functions from the public to the private sector is the best way of lowering costs and improving the quality of the service? That would be very difficult in the Welsh context, given the political composition of those to whom the Auditor General would be reporting. What if the efficiency and effectiveness review revealed that a large number of public servantsover and above the 104,000 UK-wide losses so far identified by the Chancellorwould have to go? To the best of my knowledge, we have not yet had a breakdown of what the overall figures mean for Wales. That, too, could be extremely sensitive territory, but it is impossible for the Auditor General to do the job as described in the Bill's remit unless he or she gets into that sensitive territory and starts considering whether all the public sector workers in Wales have a worthwhile job that is being carried out in a way that delivers value for the Welsh taxpayer.
	I am suspicious of the function to review best value. I think that best value is one of those gross misnomers. A best-value regime has, in many cases, become a way of avoiding giving real value for the taxpayer and has generated a huge bureaucracy on top of what would otherwise be relatively sensible services. I do not believe that this particular philosophy in this Bill will cut through or dismiss best value because the Auditor General is invited by the Bill's language to go along with the best-value regimea trumped-up method introduced by the Labour Government to avoid proper competitive tendering and contracting out. That is a fundamental flaw in the Bill, reflecting the flaw in the underlying policy that it is trying to review.
	I am also very concerned about a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin). He was, perhaps characteristically, a little too generous to the Government in making his criticism and passing over it. The question ishave the Government got the balance right in the Bill for protecting the whistleblower? My hon. Friend has done some good hard work with colleagues in Committee to get across the need to protect the whistleblower. I am sure that the Government have moved some way and I am grateful that they have seen the point.
	Although it is important to protect the whistleblower against some of the more extreme penalties and results that could occur, it is very difficultit is not dealt with properly in the Billto protect a whistleblower from loss of promotion prospects or from a difficult working environment if they wish to carry on working in the same public body. The Auditor General can make progress only if there are honest whistleblowers in the different public institutions and levels of public administration in Wales who are prepared to come forward and say how scandalous it was that so much money was spent on this and that, or that money has not been spent with great economy or good purpose.
	I am sure that some people in Welsh public services have a high-minded belief in providing value for taxpayers and would love to tell their stories tonight, especially if they resulted in improved performance. However, they will not do so because they know that their working arrangements would become very difficult and that some of their colleagues who found the ineffective and uneconomic practices convenient would obviously dislike it very much if they had the whistle blown on them.

Bill Wiggin: I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for mentioning whistleblowers. I completely agree with his point about protecting them not only from imprisonment, but further if possible. As I am sure he is aware, the Minister once introduced a Bill to protect whistleblowers, which is why we have been able to deal constructively with this Bill. However, my right hon. Friend is probably thinkingperhaps he would like to commentabout James Cameron, a whistleblower who was treated very cruelly by the Government when he revealed the scandal of Romanian people coming to this country when they should not

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We really ought to be discussing the Third Reading of the Bill.

John Redwood: I am grateful for your sage advice, Madame Deputy Speaker. It is better not to get involved in individual cases outside Wales, although the general point affects Wales materially. I am glad that the Minister has some sympathy for the drift of my remarks, which is that I want more protectionI hope that the Minister will think about this when he legislates againto be offered to those whistleblowers who are good public servants, who feel strongly about the public sector ethos and the need to provide a good service and who need to criticise one, two or three of their senior colleagues to make their point, but who are still deterred from doing that by the likelihood of the retaliatory action that can be taken in the public service.
	If the Auditor General is to succeed, he or she must create an ethos that enables people in the public services in Wales to understand the essential need to spend public money wisely and to run things efficiently. It must enable them to see attempts to explain to those in positions of responsibility how money could be better spent and how things could be better managed as part of good management and good husbandry, rather than as whistleblowing.
	That is one of the differences between parts of the public service and the private sector in Britain that is not entirely helpful to the public sector. In a good private sector company, a chairman or chief executive would introduce a suggestion scheme inviting employees, however lowly, to put forward ideas that would save an extra 1 or 2 per cent. on cost. People would co-operate in the right spirit, and middle managers would not feel resentful because they would know that they were all engaged in a dreadful struggle to keep the business competitive.
	There is not the same sense in the public sector. There is much more resentment if someone junior tells people above them that things could be so much more efficient or effective if only they were done differently. That can lead to recriminations, retaliation, unreasonable discrimination, failure to promote, sidelining and all the other things that some good public servants experience. It can be more difficult to get to the bottom of such matters, given public sector secrecy and confidentiality. So my second main point is that we really need better protection for whistleblowers if the provisions are to work.
	In conclusion, I am not against good or streamlined audit. I agree with one thing the Liberal Democrats said: we must audit the auditor to ensure that the new arrangements are not only better, but cheaper. However, in the context of such streamlining, we might need to return to the provisions to strengthen the Auditor General's position so that he can protect whistleblowers bettera lot of his work will depend on thatand so that effectiveness, efficiency and economy studies can have some real bite. My fear is that, for all the good intentions, cross-party working and agreement that we have witnessed this eveningand, I understand, during the Bill's earlier stageswhoever is in government in two or three years' time will discover that the 500 million-plus a year of waste in Welsh public spending that the Auditor General should root out, and which has been identified in general terms by the Chancellor, is still going on. If so, our legislation will have failed.

Don Touhig: With the leave of the House, I wish to reply to the debate.
	We have had another good but brief debate on the Bill. The outcome has confirmed the constructive and co-operative approach that the House has taken to the Bill since its publication in draft form in April 2003. I pay tribute to Government spokesmen and Opposition Membersin the other place, toofor the positive way in which they have responded to the Bill. I also welcome the support that hon. Members have given the Bill in Committee and this evening.
	The hon. Member for Leominster (Mr. Wiggin) welcomed the Bill, and I am delighted that he did soas he will know. He asked whether the Bill could be made more effective, as he was concerned that it replicated a number of existing practices. However, what is in place has been tested; it is proven. When things work, we should not change them merely to be new and different.
	The hon. Gentleman rehearsed some of the arguments about criminal sanctions that he made in Committee. I regret that we shall have to differ on those points. He was also concerned about co-operation between the Auditor General for Wales and the National Audit Office. During the passage of previous Bills, we have stressed the importance of cross-border co-operation and we shall certainly see that under this measure.
	The hon. Gentleman had a little spat about press releases with the Liberal Democrat representative, the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams). The hon. Member for Leominster showed the Committee a Liberal Democrat press release in which the party claimed great success in securing changes to the Bill, but he topped that with a press release of his own that was worthy of a prize for fiction, in which he laid claim to what I described as the Wiggin clauses. We take that in good humour, but we recognise the importance of co-operation and collaboration on the Bill.
	The Government acknowledge that there are differences in the matter of criminal sanctions. Where functions have been devolved to the Assembly, there is scope for secondary legislation in respect of criminal offences to diverge, but the Government take the view that, where possible, sanctions should be common to England and Wales, because we have common legal and criminal justice systems.
	The hon. Gentleman thinks that the Bill is unimaginative and a lost opportunity. Again, we have to differ. The main purpose of the Bill is to allow for a unitary audit structure, and it goes a long way to deliver that for Wales.
	The hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire talked about transparency. It is vital that any audit is as transparent as possible and that everyone can see that auditors' work on our behalf, scrutinising both public spending and the services provided for us, is open and transparent. I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman welcomes the changes we proposed to clause 54. I have given my pledge that the Government will continue along the lines that I indicated in Committee and this evening, although I am not sure whether I shall be able personally to see them throughthat will depend on something that may take place shortly.
	The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) spoke at some length about waste and inefficiency in Wales. Obviously, in all aspects of public service we have to examine whether we are getting value for money and ensure that we are not wasting the valuable resources at our disposal, whether in the Westminster Government, the Assembly or local government.
	Of course, the right hon. Gentleman knows a lot about waste. In his time as Secretary of State for Wales, we saw the waste of mass unemployment in Wales. There was waste when our industries were being run down while his party was in power, but there was a thin red line of Labour local authorities protecting services from the ravages that he and his party were perpetrating on the people of Wales.

John Redwood: That nonsense is not worthy of the Minister, so I shall not reply to it. Will he tell the House what is the waste per person in Wales under the Chancellor's waste watch? For every adult countrywide, 450 a year is being tipped down the drain. How much is it for every Welsh person?

Don Touhig: The right hon. Gentleman has the advantage of me. I am not able to give him or the House that figure. However, I agree with him that waste and inefficiency should be tackled. I certainly tried to do that in a previous incarnation when I was chair of the finance committee of my county council, again in opposition to the policies that he was pursuing in the Wales Office and which led to a great deal of waste and inefficiency in Wales.
	Audit practice has moved on. As I said when I was introducing the amendment, under clause 3 the Auditor General will have the opportunity to look forward, to look at policy development and public expenditure proposals. That is a benefit. We should not merely be looking backwards.
	I note the comments about whistleblowers made by the right hon. Member for Wokingham. Of course, if I am not mistaken he had already left the Government in 1996, when I introduced a Bill to protect whistleblowers. Nevertheless, the Conservative partyI assume that he supported his party linetotally opposed that Bill and, in fact, left whistleblowers unprotected until a Labour Government were elected and did something about it, with the support and generosity of an Opposition Member.
	This Bill will rationalise public audit arrangements in Wales. In doing so, it will greatly help the public's understanding of the audit system. We all talk about audit and say, Oh, audit is boring. Audit is uninteresting, but when things go wrong, the first people to whom we turn are auditors and we ask, Why has this happened? Why has something gone wrong? So it is important that we recognise the Bill's value.
	The Bill will vest overall responsibility for ensuring audit standards across the Welsh public sector in the hands of the Auditor General for Wales. It will bring a wealth of accounting and audit expertise within a single organisation and enable the Auditor General for Wales and his staff to build on the already generally high standards of public financial accountability that we enjoy in Wales. I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House and those in the other place for the support that they have given to the Bill. We have worked together. That shows Parliament at its best, as I have said twice before. The Bill is hugely beneficial, in the public interest and has widespread support on both sides of the House. I am happy therefore to commend it to the House.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I propose to put together motions 6 to 11.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I propose to put together motions 6 and 7.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Extradition

That the draft Extradition Act 2003 (Amendment to Designations) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.
	That the draft Extradition Act 2003 (Repeals) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Terms and Conditions of Employment

That the draft National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 17th June, be approved.[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Education

That the draft Student Fees (Amounts) (England) Regulations 2004, which were laid before this House on 1st July, be approved.[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	The House divided: Ayes 250, Noes 153.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We shall take motions 10 and 11 together.
	Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118(6)(Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Northern Ireland

That the draft Age-Related Payments (Northern Ireland) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 24th June, be approved.
	That the draft Vehicle Testing (Temporary Exemptions) (Northern Ireland) Order 2004, which was laid before this House on 29th June, be approved.[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.

WELSH GRAND COMMITTEE

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 108(1) (Welsh Grand Committee (sittings)),
	That the Order of the House of 22nd June relating to sittings of the Welsh Grand Committee on Tuesday 20th July be amended, in paragraph (2), by leaving out 'Two o'clock and half-past Four o'clock' and inserting 'Three o'clock and half-past Five o'clock'.[Mr. Jim Murphy.]
	Question agreed to.

ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT

Ordered,
	That Mr. Jon Owen Jones be discharged from the Environmental Audit Committee and Mr. John McWilliam be added.[Mr. Bob Ainsworth, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Paul Tyler: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The motion on sittings of the House was not moved. Are we to be given any explanation by the Leader of the House or the Deputy Leader of the House of the arrangements for Thursday? Has the Chair been given any indication yet

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As the motion was not moved, we will not have any debate about it at all.

Peter Bottomley: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the motion comes back tomorrow, is it possible that the Chair might say to the Government, We would like to know on which Bills messages might be presented to the House, or is that to be a secret? Is the reason for not moving the motion to try to keep that information from the public and Parliament?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's point of order is hypothetical and not one that the Chair can deal with at this time.

Eric Forth: Further to that point of order

Mr. Deputy Speaker: No, I have dealt with that matter.

PETITION
	  
	Gidea Park Post Office

Andrew Rosindell: I present a petition on behalf of no less than 1,071 of my constituents in the Gidea Park area of Romford. The people of Gidea Park are outraged at the strong possibility that the local Gidea Park post office will be closed. They have asked me to present the petition to the House on their behalf this evening.
	The Gidea Park community contains large numbers of elderly people who depend heavily on their local community shops, of which the post office is a focal point. The loss of the Gidea Park post office would not only be a great inconvenience to all local people in that area of Romford, but would have a damaging effect on other local community shops.
	I wish to present the petition on behalf of all residents of Gidea Park and the surrounding communities of Heath Park, Marshall's Park and central Romford, all of which are very close to Gidea Park. The petition has been given strong support by members of the congregation of St. Michael's church, Gidea Park, parents from the Gidea Park primary school and the Gidea Park college, and particularly the shopkeepers in Main road, Gidea Park, and Balgores lane. It also has the full support of the local councillors for the Squirrels Heath ward, Councillors Eric Munday, Michael White and Eddie Cahill, and for the Romford Town ward,   Councillors Wendy Brice-Thompson, Frederic Thompson and Andrew Curtin.
	The petition reads as follows:
	To the House of Commons,
	The Petition of the People of the Gidea Park area of Romford
	Declares that the Gidea Park Post Office is threatened with Closure. The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons do all in its power to keep the Gidea Park Post Office open.
	And the petitioners remain, etc.
	To lie upon the Table.

CHILD TRAFFICKING

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Mr. Jim Murphy.]

Sally Keeble: I am very grateful for the opportunity to have this debate on child trafficking, an issue that has been of great concern to me for a considerable number of years. It has also been highlighted by a large number of organisations, in particular UNICEF, World Vision and Save the Children, which have all campaigned strongly over the appalling exploitation of children and young people through trafficking. My local women's institutes have also been very concerned about the issue and have lobbied me on it. My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson) is also going to make some points, as he, too, has been active on this matter for a long time.
	I recognise that the present Government have taken substantial steps to deal with child trafficking, including measures in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, and the funding of the Eves project, as well as the Paladin Child project. I congratulate the Home Office and Metropolitan police staff who are working in Heathrow on that project and who do amazing work checking on the status and care arrangements for children coming into the UK. I was able to spend time with them and also with the immigration and nationality directorate staff at Croydon. I was impressed with the expertise, thought and care that they put into their very difficult work. I was very moved by some of the children whom I encountered and heard interviewed.
	The reason why I asked for this debate was that, despite the legislation and the very good work that has taken place at Heathrow, the reality appears to be that children and young people are still being trafficked into the country. When they emerge in the system, in schools, health services or in my advice surgeries in particular, there are real difficulties in getting their position resolved. Although I have a big interest in this matter as a policy issue, my main reason for raising it this evening is that it is a pressing constituency concern as well.
	I believe that there is a strong need to ensure that there is some real connection between the national and strategic work and the local work dealing with the individual child. We often get transfixed by some of the criminal issues that surround child trafficking, particularly with regard to sexual exploitation, whereas an awful lot of it is not so spectacular and is much more humdrum, relating to benefit fraud, private fostering arrangements and other such issues.
	I am concerned mainly with child protection rather than criminal issues. I have repeatedly dealt with cases in which children have been trafficked into the UK, but in which it has been exceptionally difficult or, as in most cases, completely impossible, to sort out their immigration status and get them essential support. There is a lot behind the children whom I have encountered that is not clear. In most cases, I do not know why they leave their country of origin, although I would assume that their parents want to get them out of countries that are being destroyed by conflict and poverty.
	It is sometimes unclear how such children are being exploited. On one occasion, the exploitation involved domestic servitude, in some cases the sexual exploitation of older girls and women was involved and other cases included benefit claims and private fostering. Exploitation might even begin with the best of intentions and occur because of changed circumstances.
	It is clear that people are paid to bring children, who often change hands more than once before they get to Northampton, into the country. The relationship between such children and their carers is not always clear, and they are often moved about. I am not prepared to see those children continue to be moved about and treated in that way without the implementation of more robust arrangements to protect them.
	I first came across child trafficking back in the early 1990s, when I was a councillor in south London. I had to deal with a young Somali girl who had been brought into the country to marry a much older man and run a home for a series of children smuggled in on false papers. Her story was similar to those that I have heard repeatedly in recent years. Agents bring in children whom they usually pass off as relatives. The children are given papers, which are then taken back by the agent or destroyednormally, the agent takes the papers backand are sometimes taken to a community centre or similar in London before being moved on. It is hard to get more precise information and doubts always exist about the extent to which children are coached and the possibility that some of the children might be UK children who are being circulated around the system.
	I have met a reasonable number of such children and have got to know some of them well over the years. They have clearly been smuggled through immigration by being passed off as agents' children, and they end up in Northampton with no papers and no status. Trying to get their status sorted out is extremely difficult, especially for younger children, who are the most vulnerable and who often do not know where they have been and where they have come from.
	I shall give some examples. A young woman who was brought into the UK to start a better life ended up in domestic servitudea church community helped her to leave her home. Two little boys, who are still waiting for DNA tests to establish their relationship with their father so that their status here can be resolved, were apparently brought in by an agent in November 2000, and they are still in a bureaucratic limbothey are at school, but they cannot register with doctors because they do not have birth certificates. I have been in contact with the Home Office about them since early last year.
	Agents brought two young girls into the UK via Heathrow on 15 May 2002 and 7 September 2001, and the girls' status has not been resolveda dispute seems to be occurring between two women over which of them is the girls' mother. A number of teenage girls who were brought in and moved around repeatedly are still without papers. Other cases have occurred, some of which were referred to people involved in the care of children in Northampton.
	Those children are not unaccompanied minors who claim asylum on arrival. Some 2,800 unaccompanied minors arrived last year and they are relatively well off compared with the children I am talking about. I am discussing children who appear in the system without proof of identity, residential status and clear safeguards or protections. They are children such as Victoria Climbi, who was brought into the UK by being passed off as her aunt's daughter. I always have a great sense of unease when I deal with such cases and talk to the children.
	Those children need more protection, and I ask my hon. Friend the Minister for five things. First, I know that the Home Office is already training more staff to do the work undertaken by the team at Heathrow that stops and checks children being brought into the country when it has doubts about the arrangements. I hope that the training will progress quickly and that such teams will be installed at ports across the country. The work is remarkable and involves simple things such as discovering whether the relationship between the two people is what it is claimed to be by picking up the body language between an adult and a child and determining proper arrangements for the care of the child. When I was at Heathrow, the team picked up a mother and son, who were not in fact mother and sonthe so-called son had a load of drugs in his little rucksack.
	Secondly, I ask that applications for asylum or immigration status from children are fast-tracked. Taking three years to process a claim for asylum or indefinite leave may not be a disaster for an adult, but it is an eternity for a boy of five or six. If a parent or adult with care agreed to a DNA test in 2003, it should not take 18 months to get it done in order that the relationship between the adult and the child can be established and the immigration claim properly assessedit should happen much more quickly than that. In the meantime, the child cannot gain access to a range of services, including health services.
	Thirdly, some good joint working between national and local authorities and between the different local authorities is required to ensure that problems such as data sharing are properly resolved. If there have to be delays in inquiries into the exact status of a child, some thought must be given to liaising with the local social services and housing authorities to prevent repeated moves and to ensure that the child's school is properly involved and that other safeguards are in place.
	Fourthly, the Home Office needs to give some thought, in conjunction with the airlines, to how children's identity documents should be handled. That critical matter has been discussed at official level, in the industry and among concerned groups. Perhaps the documentation for certain children who travel on airlines should be kept by stewards or similar people on the plane, then handed over to the immigration staff when the children disembark.
	It is hard to describe how horrible it is having to ask a child about their identity when they do not know. I once talked to a child who, as was clear from having tracked back through the record of what had happened to her, must have originally left her home in Somalia when she was about four years old. When I asked her where she had come from and what it was like there, she did not know, not because she was trying to deceive me, but because she could not remember as she was too little. Once children forget, there is nothing on earth that one can do about it. As for the children themselves, they lose their sense of themselves, who they are and where they have come from. I very much feel for the children who become lost in bureaucratic red tape.

Tim Loughton: I am listening intently to the hon. Lady. Is it not sensible that, when a child arrives in the country with an adult, there should be some way of ascertaining that the adult has parental responsibility, either as a parent or a relative in place of parents, and that if that is not the case, there should, as in the ordinary way, be an involvement by social services or the authorities at the airport before the child is free to enter the country? Moreover, should not there be much greater involvement with international social services that deal particularly with those countries in west Africa from which most of these trafficked children still come? That still has not happened, even in the light of the Victoria Climbi case.

Sally Keeble: Yes, I agree. Some thought must be given to how one identifies the children who are covered by the documentation that is provided. The children should be with parents or adults who have an established relationship with them, and the nature of the relationship should be absolutely clear. I would not expect genuine parents to be too worried about handing over their children's passports for safe keeping for the duration of the flight. However, the points that the hon. Gentleman made are critical because the impersonation of a relationship rather than the forged documents is the real problem, as, for example, in the case of Victoria Climbi. It is probably the bigger problem in all the cases with which I have dealt. I therefore agree with the hon. Gentleman, who had one of the homes in his constituency.
	Fifthly, I ask that children who are found to have no residential status be regarded as being at risk. They should be on the at-risk register and social services should treat them as being at risk until it is proven otherwise. One of the current problems is that, when children turn up without status or papers and efforts are made to get them on to somebody's asylum application or to get their residential status linked with an adult with whom there is no proven link, one has to prove to the local authorities that they are at risk. One has to try to get intervention on that basis. I believe that the boot should be on the other foot and that the children should be protected until it is clearly established that they are with people with whom they have a relationship and that they will be safe.
	My hon. Friend the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration has on file many of the details of the individual cases that I have encountered over the years. I hope that he has considered carefully the lessons to be learned from them. I have not gone into them in detail tonight because they refer to individual children. However, I hope that my hon. Friend considers them carefully and puts in hand some of the steps, perhaps with colleagues in other Departments, that will bring those children out of the twilight world in which they live and give them the status and protection that they need. I seriously hope that he will examine that as a matter of urgency because repeated cases come through my advice surgeries. All the national agencies are clear that the problem is substantial. We must protect those children and ensure that we have no more disasters.

Hilton Dawson: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) on her tremendous work on such a serious issue and on her good fortune in securing the debate, especially when we have a little more opportunity than normal to discuss the matter. I also congratulate her on everything that she said, with which I heartily concur.
	I have nothing like my hon. Friend's direct experience of children who have been trafficked and the situations in which they appear in this country. However, I have spoken to several people and organisations that are involved in the issue and I am extremely concerned about what I have heard of the circumstances that they have come across.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for Citizenship and Immigration, who will reply to the debate. I am not sure of the collective noun for social workersI am sure that it is not pejorativebut I took a gaggle of them to see him late last week with a proposal for a pioneering international approach to the subject and other associated problems. I was pleased with his positive response and interest.
	I have heard that trafficking in children affects children in a wide variety of situations, including those who have been trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and benefit fraud. Some of the examples that I have heard of children being trafficked for sexual exploitation sound like the very worst forms of child abuse and exploitation that there could possibly be. Reference has already been made to the work that has been done in the safe house in West Sussex to deal with children who came to this country not only frightened out of their wits by the real threats made to them and to their families back in the countries from which they came, but scared by tales of witch doctors, voodoo, juju and black magic that have been perpetrated on them. There is evidence of children being trafficked into this country for sexual exploitation, and being trafficked beyond this country to Italy, to work there as prostitutes to pay back the traffickers many times over the money that they expended on bringing the children here.
	There are many organisations working in this field. As well as the ones that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North mentioned, there is ECPAT, which stands for End Child Prostitution And Trafficking, and AFRUCAAfricans United against Child Abusean organisation rooted in the African community in this country that is doing sterling work and has access to information of profound importance. That organisation knows of children in domestic servitude and of children coming into this country to be brought into private fostering and involved in benefit fraud; we need to tap into that.
	This problem requires a multi-agency response. I believe that the Home Office is doing an excellent job in this regard, with legislation already being put in place to deal with the criminals who profit from this appalling trade. However, we also need very good relationships between the immigration and nationality directorate, the police, and social services, all of whom must work coherently together. Operation Paladin has been a step in the right direction, but we do not know the extent of the problem. We suspect that it is a large one, involving appalling exploitation, but we do not know, and we do not have effective models or effective ways of working with children who have been trafficked. We need the organisations to work together and we need a range of resources to deal with those children. We also need to learn the most effective ways of dealing with them and we need international work to link with agencies back in the countries whence they came. We need a child-centred, international social work approach to this serious problem, and I hope that this debate will help us to move forward on a variety of fronts.

Des Browne: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Ms Keeble) on securing this debate. I know that she has come across cases of trafficked children, or of children who are suspected of having been trafficked, in her constituency, and I commend her for the assiduous way in which she has brought the concerns of her constituents to the House. I hope that I shall be able to reassure her, in my response to this short debate, that the Government are taking the issue of child trafficking seriously.
	All too often, many important issues are discussed in front of a comparatively sparsely populated House of Commons because they are raised in the context of an Adjournment debate. What this short debate has lost in quantity, however, it has made up for in quality. I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Dawson), whose reputation in relation to such issues, particularly child protection issues, stands the test against any other Memberand furth of this Househas been able to make a contribution. I shall come shortly to the meeting that we had last week, and what further contribution the delegation that he brought to see me can make with the Government in advancing public policy on this issue.
	I also want to mention the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton). Although his contribution was only through an intervention, clearly, he has a degree of knowledge on this issue, which is based, I understand, on some constituency experience. Even in that short intervention, he brought additional information to the debate, attention to which should serve us well in the future.
	Child trafficking is a pernicious crime. It violates basic human rights, and treats its victims as a commodity to be bought or sold, or to be bought, sold and abused in some circumstances. In a globalised society, it is also a crime that transcends national borders, and in some circumstances, organisational boundaries. The Government need to work together across agencies, and across Governments, if we are to tackle it effectively. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North for her opening remarks acknowledging the work done in this area of public policy by the Government, but I accept her advocacy of the fact that there is more to do.
	My hon. Friend referred to suspected cases involving trafficked children in her constituency, and I know that she had concerns that certain cases had not been responded to either appropriately or speedily enough. I know that because in the comparatively short time that I have been the Minister with this responsibility, we have discussed those issues on a number of occasions. Indeed, we made arrangements to have a meeting later this weekI do not know whether this debate will serve to satisfy her request for a meeting, or whether the meeting should still go ahead. If she wishes it still to go ahead, I will be happy to meet her.

Sally Keeble: I did not go into all the detail of the cases, because I knew that we would be talking about them later this week.

Des Browne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am glad that I will not have to take that meeting out of my diary. I was keen to have the meeting, to discuss her concerns and to give her the reassurance in private that I am not able to give in this debate for obvious reasons. I hope that I can reassure her that the necessary steps were taken to investigate the issues that she brought to the Government's attention, and I am sure that when we meet later this weekon Thursday, I believeI will be able to satisfy her.
	I accept, however, that there were failings, especially in relation to the length of time taken to deal with her correspondence on those cases. I could have admitted that in private, but it is appropriate that I admit in public that there was such an error because, as a result of those failings, I ordered a review of the way in which correspondence relating to child protection issues was dealt with on receipt in the Home Office. I am pleased to inform her that processes have now been put in place that enable priority action to be given to letters such as those that she has written previously on such issues.
	I want to outline briefly the various stages in child trafficking, and how the Government are approaching those. As we go through those stages, I shall seek appropriately to interweave my responses to the specific requests made by my hon. Friend. I shall refer to the interesting international proposal, which was brought to my attention earlier this month, on which I had a meeting with my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre and his gaggle of social workers, as he described them, recently.
	First, we need to do preventive work in source countries to stop trafficking happening in the first place. We need an effective enforcement response to clamp down on trafficking when it does happen, and we need tough sentences in place to ensure that traffickers are suitably punished. We need to do all that we can to support the victims of child trafficking, and to help them to overcome their trauma and to restart their lives where appropriate.
	First, I want to mention the ground-breaking work done by Operation Paladin Child.
	It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.
	Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Mr. Jim Murphy.]

Des Browne: Operation Paladin Child was led by the Metropolitan police in conjunction with the immigration service, social services and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It took place between August and November last year at Heathrow and was funded by Reflex, the multi-agency task force that tackles organised immigration crime.
	Although the operation did not find conclusive evidence that children were being trafficked into Heathrowwhich was reassuring, to some extentit threw up child protection issues that might not otherwise have come to light. Its report made a number of recommendations on how the police, the immigration service and social services could work together more effectively. I know that my hon. Friend has taken a keen interest in the recommendations, and I think her call for closer co-operation mirrors them to a significant degree. As she told us, she visited Heathrow to see what was happening for herself. I am grateful to her for her appreciation of the work that was being done there, and will ensure that her remarks are passed to those who were responsible for the operation.
	I can reassure my hon. Friend that I am working closely with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children. We are considering the recommendations, and will be responding to them. I hope to be able to do that by the autumn. I recently met my right hon. Friend informally, and we have agreed to do the preliminary work during the summer recess, with a view to a meeting in the autumn to deal with this and other issues in which we share an interest.

Hilton Dawson: Can my hon. Friend assure me that he and our right hon. Friend the Minister for Children will want to apply the lessons of Operation Paladin Child to all ports throughout the country?

Des Browne: That was a timely intervention. I was about to say that a child protection officer is already based at Heathrow, and that the immigration service is developing a proposal for social work teams to be based at major ports of entry. I cannot guarantee that that will include ports of entry throughout the United Kingdom, but it will follow a risk-based assessment, and will involve all ports where there is evidence that such behaviour might take place.
	Let me say something about the Government's work with source countries, which is very important. This will, I think, partly answer my hon. Friend's point about travel documents and children. Our work is vital if we are to tackle trafficking at its root. We have a number of initiatives overseas. Some, for example a new Home Office project in the Czech Republic, are intended to build the capacity of our overseas partners to tackle trafficking. The twinning project, funded by the European Commission, is being run in conjunction with the Netherlands Centre for International Police Co-operation and the Czech Ministry of Interior. The aim is to strengthen the republic's capacity to combat trafficking into, within, and out of the country. I travelled to Prague last month to attend the launch, and was able to see at first hand that it is a genuine partnership between three European Union countries committed to working together on this important issue.
	We are also committed to working with overseas partners to raise awareness of trafficking. Bilaterally and through international organisations, we are supporting projects in a number of countries, including those thought to be key source countries for child trafficking. We have given support to Anti-Slavery International for its work with child rights organisations across west Africa to increase awareness of the dangers in trafficking for domestic work. Through the International Labour Organisation, we are supporting a project to reduce the trafficking of women and children in the Mekong region of south-east Asia.
	From the information gleaned from those projects, Operation Paladin Child, and my own research following visits to ports of entry and discussions on unaccompanied children with immigration officers, I have come to the conclusion that we need to work not only with other countries and agencies but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North suggested, with the carriers, whose involvement should not be limited to ensuring that children's travel documents are secure. Hon. Members will be aware that the Asylum and Immigration Bill (Treatment of Claimants, etc.) Bill, which is currently before Parliament, includes provisions on the protection of documentation. Under the powers available to the Home Secretary, the Home Office and the Government, carriers will be required to copy documentation, but we must also work with them to ensure that they are aware of the risks of their actions. I was astonished to learn on a visit to Heathrow terminal 3 that a carrierI will not name it, because it would be invidious to do so without giving it prior noticerecently carried 17 unaccompanied children on one plane, and that that was not an unusual event. They could have been 17 perfectly innocent journeys, and those children could have been well protected, but the fact that the carrier had a history of carrying children in such numbers suggested that something was amiss. When I explored the matter further, immigration officials told me that suspicions were aroused by the children's behaviour and that they and others had had to take action, confirming that there was a problem.
	I am not saying that the practice of carrying unaccompanied children, inadvertently or by omission, into dangerous circumstances is restricted to one carrier, but international carriers with the power to transport young children thousands of miles across the globe in a comparatively short period ought to take their responsibilities seriously. Some carriers do so, but it is incumbent on Government Departments to ensure that all carriers approach the issue with the seriousness that it merits. Their principal focus should be the protection of the children they carry, and it is my intention, in consultation with fellow Ministers, to seek to ensure that that objective is met by carriers who carry children into UK ports of entry, insofar as it is consistent with international law.
	Trafficking does not take place in a vacuum, and we have good reason to believe that it is closely linked to other forms of organised crime, such as drug trafficking, gun crime and prostitution. I recently read a sensationalist newspaper account in which an immigration officer in a trial for trafficking was reported as saying that some organised criminals had turned from drug trafficking to people trafficking because it was more lucrative. It was implied that that was the fault of the UK Government or the Home Office, because they had created the trafficking, but nothing could be further from the truth. The number of people trafficked to the UK, while worrying, pales into insignificance next to the number of people trafficked around the world and the appalling number who die on those journeys. Many of them do not get anywhere near the shores of the developed western worldtheir objectivebefore they perish. Given the amount of money that people are prepared to pay to try to make those journeys or be carried by traffickers, I am not at all surprised that criminals are turning from drug trafficking to people trafficking. As a developed country, and given the resources at our disposal, we have a responsibility to interdict such behaviour wherever it occurs in the world. The people at risk from such behaviour are some of the most vulnerable, and as a result of it they are dying in significant numbers.
	International co-operation and joint working across agencies are absolutely essential if we are to combat trafficking. In the UK, we have achieved this through the establishment of Reflex, a taskforce that brings together the police, intelligence agencies, the immigration service, Government Departments and the Crown Prosecution Service to tackle organised immigration crime, which includes people smuggling and trafficking. The UK Government are supporting the important work of Reflex with 20 million of funding per year over the next two years. Only through this kind of genuine partnership will we bring together all the agencies that need to be involved in putting a stop to trafficking.
	We are seeing excellent results from this multi-agency approach. Between April 2003 and April 2004, 38 organised crime groups involved in organised immigration crime were disrupted. In the same period, 38 convictions were secured for related offences, the most high profile of which was the conviction of a ruthless criminal who had trafficked young girls into prostitution in London. Seven young women from Romania and Moldova were identified, the youngest of whom was only 17. Each victim thought that they were being taken to the UK for employment, but they were forced into prostitution, and beaten and raped by the traffickers. The Metropolitan police and Reflex did a tremendous job on this operation, and I would like to pay tribute to their skills, which resulted in the principal defendant being sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment.
	Our work on enforcement goes hand in hand with tough new offences on trafficking. The UK was closely involved in the UN protocol on trafficking. We have also signed the EU framework decision on trafficking for labour and sexual exploitation, which has committed us to introducing criminal sanctions covering these forms of trafficking. Sexual offences legislation that came into force in May introduces comprehensive offences covering trafficking into, out of and within the UK for all forms of sexual exploitation.
	We have also responded to increasing concern about trafficking for forced labour, slavery or removal of organs. A new offence covering trafficking for these purposes is part of the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants, Etc.) Bill, which is currently before the House. We have taken steps to ensure that our legislation criminalises trafficking in both adults and children. Indeed, we tabled an amendment to that Bill on Report on 1 March, to ensure that children and vulnerable people were covered. When this last set of offences comes into force, we will have strong and comprehensive laws that send a clear message that we will not tolerate trafficking.
	I want to outline what we are doing to support victims of child trafficking, the human cost of which is very high. Being trafficked is a terrifying and traumatic experience. Victims can be forced into domestic service or into the sex trade, as we have heard, and we need to ensure that systems are in place to protect them; only then can we help them overcome their experiences. Of course, we want them to be confident enough to help the police in bringing the perpetrators to justice.
	It is the local social services departments that will provide support for victims of child trafficking. Such children are likely to be in need of welfare services and, in many cases, protection under the Children Act 1989.

Sally Keeble: Will my hon. Friend spell out carefully what he expects social services to do? One reason why I asked for such children to be considered as at risk is that social services would then be immediately obliged to help them. At the moment, it is very hard for children to get that help.

Des Browne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. Given that we have discussed this issue, she knows that social services have a duty to safeguard and to promote the welfare of such children following an assessment of their circumstances. Social services departments will undertake needs assessments, and they will provide services in the light of the outcome of those assessments. Such services will be tailored to the individual needs of the child, just as they should be for any child in need.
	We recognise that there is a real danger that victims returning home will fall back into the hands of traffickers. That is why we will remove unaccompanied children only if we are satisfied that the family has been traced, that adequate reception arrangements are in place and that there will be adequate longer-term care for them. If they have been victims of sexual exploitation, their communities may refuse to welcome them back, and we need to help victims reintegrate into their communities and to deal sensitively with some of the cultural assumptions that can prevent that.

Sally Keeble: Will my hon. Friend deal with the need for data sharing? Children move around frequently and sometimes social services will not help them or will say that they cannot find them. It is a pressing issue to provide the safeguards that are needed.

Des Browne: If my hon. Friend will bear with me for a moment, I will come on to the issue of fast tracking and data sharing. At this point, I want to deal with the meeting that I had last week because it represents what my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre referred to as a pioneering international approach. It also relates to the point made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham about contact with social services in the originating countries.
	In my view, the concept of adopting an international approach through professionalised social services is a very attractive proposition. It presents a significant challenge to the Government to generate co-operation with other countries with a view to putting in place the level of co-operation necessary to ensure that appropriate standards are applied across international boundaries. The proposition put to me last week was substantially the work of Lawrence Chester, whom I know from other work that he has done with refugees. He has a significant reputation not only in respect of social work, but of refugees. He was supported by the British Association of Social Workers, represented by Ian Johnston and John Metcalf, and by the Children's Legal Centre represented by George Lane.
	It was an exciting and interesting proposal that will require further discussion in government and across government here in the UK and with interested non-governmental organisations. We will need to develop the approach in the UK before we can consider taking it further internationally, and it may be some considerable time before the exciting proposal becomes a reality, but it is worthwhile work and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre and others for bringing it to me. I will take it as far forward as I can, which might provide a vehicle for taking forward some of the points raised by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham.
	May I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North that I am indeed aware of how important speed of decision making is to children? As she rightly says, a comparatively short wait may not be a long time in an adult's life, but it may be an eternity in a child's life. I fully understand that. Taking decisions about children with appropriate speed is part of the process of dealing with children sensitively and appropriately. That is what I expect the immigration and nationality directorate to do.
	My hon. Friend must accept, however, the requirement to balance the obvious need for a speedy decision in cases of applications made by children against ensuring that any areas of concern about the child's welfare are fully explored with the relevant agencies before the decision is reached. Having spent the best part of a quarter of a century of my professional lifebefore I became a professional politicianworking in child law matters and child protection, I am very much aware of the dangers of taking decisions about children far too quickly. Unfortunately, there are some outstanding examples of that in the history of child protection in the UK. Not enough time has been taken fully to explore with the relevant agencies the appropriate issues on child protection.
	My hon. Friend can rest assured that I am conscious of the need for that balance and for the need for speedappropriate speedwhen dealing with children. I ask her to accept my assurance that the Home Office and the immigration and nationality directorate are working to ensure that the desire for speed does not operate against the best interests of the child.
	My expectation is that the immigration and nationality directorate will carry out that work to the standard of the duty of care towards children that arises from our obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child. Although the UK has a reservation in the convention enabling us to apply such legislation as we deem necessary in the interests of immigration control, we have regard to the convention in the formulation of policy and practice relating to children arriving or resident in the UK. The key obligations are to act in the child's best interests, to take all appropriate steps to protect the child from all forms of abuse or neglect, and to provide special protection and assistance to children deprived of their family environment, for whatever reason.
	My hon. Friend asked me to reassure her specifically that social services will ensure that data are shared appropriately. In cases relating to children, I have met agencies whose approach has seemed to be more about data protection than about child protection. In my view, when a balance must be struck between the protection of the child and the protection of data, the obligation of an agency is to err on the side of the protection of the child. I would expect that, insofar as I have responsibility for issues relating to child protection, those who are directly accountable to me will apply that rule at all times. I am not responsible for other areas of Government policy, but I would be astonished if other Ministers took a different view. I hope that that reassurance is sufficient for my hon. Friend.

Tim Loughton: I am greatly encouraged by the Minister's comments about data. He mentioned working on a joint international initiative, which is essential. It is now more than four years since Victoria Climbi came to this country from the Ivory Coast and more than five years since we had a spate of girls coming from Nigeria and Sierra Leone into west Sussex through Gatwick airport, who were subsequently adopted into the sex trade in northern Italy. What has happened in the past two years to ensure that international social services are working to ensure that those children do not get on the plane in the first place? If there is a problem with sending children back, are international social services working with the communities in those countries to make it safe for them to go back? If there is any question of those children being used for illicit purposes in this country, their best home must be with or close to their families and communities of origin. I would have hoped that a bit more had been done by now.

Des Browne: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman's analysis of the challenges and priorities. I have set out the extent of my knowledge about international co-operation. I do not have detailed knowledge about that other area of Government responsibility, but I will undertake to have his questions answered appropriately and I will write to him. I do not know off the top of my head just how robust international social services are in the areas that he mentions. He is entitled to a response to those questions, but it is not the Government's responsibility to construct social service support in other parts of the world. It is our responsibility to ensure that those people who come to our shores receive an appropriate response and that the necessary risk assessment is made. I hope that I have been able to reassure the House that significant progress has been made in the legislative structure and in the practical operation of that protection, but challenges remain and there is still work to be done. That work will be carried on not only by me, in the Home Office, but by other Ministers who share with me responsibility for children in the UK. I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman receives a written response from me on those issues, and I shall lodge the letter in the Library.
	I have outlined briefly the Government's strategy to combat trafficking, but it must be accepted that we cannot do that work alone. We need to continue to work across traditional organisational boundaries. We must work with our EU partners and beyond the EU. We must work with the voluntary sector and with communities both in this country and abroad to address some of the wider cultural issues behind trafficking.
	I hope that through innovative operations, such as Operation Paladin Child, and by bringing together professionals from different backgrounds and organisations we can continue that work. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North for giving me this opportunity to set outat some length, due to the extra time availablewhat the Government are doing in this field and I hope that she is reassured by my remarks.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at twenty-five minutes past Ten o'clock.